Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers, February 5, 2008
I received the coded message from “Shallow Throat” — the high-ranking GOP mole in the Bush Administration — and quickly arranged a Bethesda meeting at the place I was housesitting.
ST didn’t even wait to sit down on the sofa before starting the vent: “Everytime I think you and your Democrat friends have some smarts, and are showing some moxie that might lead to a turnaround in public policy, you screw it up.
“You guys fell right into Karl Rove’s trap,” said ST, taking off the new wig and wraparound shades. “The public is ready for a MAJOR political shift. You had a chance to nominate someone who would represent a real difference between Bush and his manipulators, but you sent Kucinich and even Edwards packing. Now the two left in the race are centrist Dems –with potentially huge negative numbers — who are beholden to the same corporate/lobbying interests that stand behind Bush and Cheney and McCain and Romney. In short, the powers-that-be can’t lose no matter which party gets into the White House. Not much will really change.”
“Wait a minute,” I replied. “First of all, you have to admit that Kucinich and Edwards were belittled, made the butt of jokes, and mostly ignored by the corporate mass-media. Such treatment made it virtually impossible for them to gain any traction in the public polls and imagination. But, more importantly, are you really telling me that you don’t see any significant differences between Obama and Clinton, and them and the Republicans they’d be running against?”
“In style yes, but in substance not so much,” said Shallow Throat. “On the major issue, for example, the ongoing Iraq occupation, the two Dems are reluctant to move quickly. They seem, in their own ways, to accept the Republican premise that America needs to be the policeman of the Middle East, with a sizable and presumably permanent strike force stationed at U.S. bases in Iraq, what Bush calls ‘protective overwatch’ of the region. Both Clinton and Obama voted to fund the war, though Obama (not in the Senate at the time) was against it before it started, unlike Clinton: She refuses to concede that her vote to authorize Bush to use force was a mistake; she professes to be shocked, shocked!, that Bush shortly thereafter used the force she voted to give him.
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“Shallow Throat” Sizes Up the Presidential Candidates
Bernard Weiner, The Crisis Papers, February 5, 2008
I received the coded message from “Shallow Throat” — the high-ranking GOP mole in the Bush Administration — and quickly arranged a Bethesda meeting at the place I was housesitting.
ST didn’t even wait to sit down on the sofa before starting the vent: “Everytime I think you and your Democrat friends have some smarts, and are showing some moxie that might lead to a turnaround in public policy, you screw it up.
“You guys fell right into Karl Rove’s trap,” said ST, taking off the new wig and wraparound shades. “The public is ready for a MAJOR political shift. You had a chance to nominate someone who would represent a real difference between Bush and his manipulators, but you sent Kucinich and even Edwards packing. Now the two left in the race are centrist Dems –with potentially huge negative numbers — who are beholden to the same corporate/lobbying interests that stand behind Bush and Cheney and McCain and Romney. In short, the powers-that-be can’t lose no matter which party gets into the White House. Not much will really change.”
“Wait a minute,” I replied. “First of all, you have to admit that Kucinich and Edwards were belittled, made the butt of jokes, and mostly ignored by the corporate mass-media. Such treatment made it virtually impossible for them to gain any traction in the public polls and imagination. But, more importantly, are you really telling me that you don’t see any significant differences between Obama and Clinton, and them and the Republicans they’d be running against?”
“In style yes, but in substance not so much,” said Shallow Throat. “On the major issue, for example, the ongoing Iraq occupation, the two Dems are reluctant to move quickly. They seem, in their own ways, to accept the Republican premise that America needs to be the policeman of the Middle East, with a sizable and presumably permanent strike force stationed at U.S. bases in Iraq, what Bush calls ‘protective overwatch’ of the region. Both Clinton and Obama voted to fund the war, though Obama (not in the Senate at the time) was against it before it started, unlike Clinton: She refuses to concede that her vote to authorize Bush to use force was a mistake; she professes to be shocked, shocked!, that Bush shortly thereafter used the force she voted to give him.
Read More Here