smells like GOP spirit

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m about 9/11-ed out.  This is one of the disadvantages of being Mr. Late Nite.  By the time people get around to reading what I have to say about the events of the day, EVERYBODY else has had a crack at it. 

Right now Preznint Gimme Back My Bullhorn is droning out his "non-political" speech and I have no choice but to listen to it since I’m working at the radio station and we’re carrying it.  Funny, is it me or is this is the same goddamn speech he’s been making for the last five fucking years?  Shut your pie-hole, you filthy old fraud!  "9/11!  9/11!  Saddam, Saddam!!  STAY THE COOOOURSE!!"  SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOU BRAIN-DEAD PIECE OF POLITICAL ROADKILL!!

Ahem. 

How stupid does he think we are?

Don’t answer that.

Just in case you thought the Reich Wing would hit their sleaze saturation limit on exploiting the attacks five years ago, think again, kids.  We have this from Andrew Sullivan (via Digby) giving us a sneak preview of what we have to look forward to in the next eight weeks until the elections:

Next week, I’m informed via troubled White House sources, will see the full unveiling of Karl Rove’s fall election strategy. He’s intending to line up 9/11 families to accuse McCain, Warner and Graham of delaying justice for the perpetrators of that atrocity, because they want to uphold the ancient judicial traditions of the U.S. military and abide by the Constitution. He will use the families as an argument for legalizing torture, setting up kangaroo courts for military prisoners, and giving war crime impunity for his own aides and cronies. This is his "Hail Mary" move for November; it’s brutally exploitative of 9/11; it’s pure partisanship; and it’s designed to enable an untrammeled executive. Decent Republicans, Independents and Democrats must do all they can to expose and resist this latest descent into political thuggery. If you need proof that this administration’s first priority is not a humane and effective counter-terror strategy, but a brutal, exploitative path to retaining power at any price, you just got it.

(Sully, what’s the deal?  Sometimes you write like a man with a brain.  Then other times, you can’t help dining out on your accent and Thatcherite cred, babbling nonsense like a dick-sucking Chris Hitchens.  Whose side are you supposed to be on, anyway?)

But let’s have a closer look at this strategy of Karl’s.

He’s intending to line up 9/11 families to accuse McCain, Warner and Graham of delaying justice for the perpetrators of that atrocity, because they want to uphold the ancient judicial traditions of the U.S. military and abide by the Constitution. He will use the families as an argument for legalizing torture, setting up kangaroo courts for military prisoners, and giving war crime impunity for his own aides and cronies.

Right.  So, let’s make sure this is clear to everyone.  If you are a 9/11 family who want to find out the truth about what happened on September the 11th, 2001, fuck you.  Similarly, if you are a veteran who needs health care, disagrees with the execution of the GWOT, or is suffering from PTSD, DOUBLE-fuck you.  If you are a worker from Ground Zero who was lied to about the safety of the air in Manhattan after the attacks, well, fuck you sideways with a chainsaw.  You’ll be dead from chronic lung failure before the tenth anniversary of the attacks, anyway, so the administration only has to drown you out and deride you for a couple more years.  They don’t even have to call your heroism or credibility into question, cos, you know, you’re too sick to stand up for yourself now.

However, if you are a 9/11 family member, bereaved war widow, or one of those passingly rare Republican veterans of the GWOT and are willing to whore out your grief and pain to be a hood ornament on Unca Karl’s Big Hate Machine, then the administration honors your sacrifice, feels your pain, and wants to do anything it can to help you, if you’ll just stand here for a moment and pose for the cameras next to the Preznint.  Thank you.  

So, if you’re Cindy Sheehan, Kristin Breitweiser, or Paul Hackett, Karl Rove wants you to just STFU, and if you don’t, he’ll call out any number of Sean Hannitys, Ann Coulters or other surrogates to defame you, smear you, call you names, and accuse you of hating America and aiding the terrorists.  Got that?  If your pain and struggle has failed to turn you into a lock-stepping BushBot, then you are shit on the administration’s shoes.   If you’re a soldier, then you are useful as a backdrop in press conferences and staged photo ops, but if you want to know where the fuck your body armor is and why we’ve sent you to Iraq, well, someone will get back to you.  Eventually.  Maybe by the time your fifth or sixth tour of duty is over.

Can we maybe try and get out ahead of this one for once?  Beat the Rightards to the punch this time?  We’ve got eight weeks, and the low men in charge of the government right now are going to try everything they can think of to maintain their death-grip on the reins of power.  This time, however, the majority of national opinion is with us.  We have the advantage.  So, don’t let up.  Hit them with everything you’ve got.  They’re going to fight dirty.  We’re going to have to fight with our teeth bared and our claws out.  In the words of our own Jane H, "Fuck ‘em hard.  This one’s for all the marbles."

Never defend.

Never explain.

ATTACK!  ATTACK!  ATTAAAAAAAAACK!! 

I leave you with Kristen Breitweiser’s words to Karl Rove from June of 2005:

Finally Karl, please “understand” that the reason we have not suffered a repeat attack on our homeland is because Bin Laden no longer needs to attack us. Those of us with a pure and comprehensive “understanding of 9/11” know that Bin Laden committed the 9/11 attacks so he could increase recruitment for al Qaeda and increase worldwide hatred of America. That didn’t happen. Because after 9/11, the world united with Americans and al Qaeda’s recruitment levels never increased.

It was only after your invasion of Iraq, that Bin Laden’s goals were met. Because of your war in Iraq two things happened that helped Bin Laden and the terrorists: al Qaeda recruitment soared and the United States is now alienated from and hated by the rest of the world. In effect, what Bin Laden could not achieve by murdering my husband and 3,000 others on 9/11, you handed to him on a silver platter with your invasion of Iraq – a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

Which leads me to my final questions for you Karl: What are your motives when it comes to 9/11 and are you really sure that you understand 9/11?

Let me answer that question for you, Ms Breitweiser.  Clearly, Rove and the rest of the GOP gestapo only understand 9/11 as far as they can exploit it for political gain.  The rest of it’s just background noise.  Like, whose fault it was, how it could have been stopped, and what we could have learned from it?  That’s just, you know, nuance.  And the administration doesn’t "do nuance".   

We’ve got a lot of work to do between now and November.  Let’s get busy.