Comments on: Speaker of the House, Dennis Hastert

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 09:20:09 +0000

As with the swifties, if you come out with a vigorous and remotely plausible lie, no one will be paying attention when it is demolished. Nope…we’re past that stage now. Lies can’t be “demolished” anymore, not in our brave new world of postmodern conservatism. There’s no doubt that at least a few of those cretins sporting “purple heart bandages” on the floor of the Republican convention this week have read about the very thorough debunkings of the SBVT claims in major newspapers. They simply don’t care. The calumny suits their political purposes, it jibes with their general sense that “liberal” equals “immoral,” and they’re sticking with it. The fact that in the process they’re implicitly pissing all over one of their greatest sacred cows, the United States armed forces, doesn’t seem to occur to anyone. Consider this: Richard Mellon Scaife is virtually unknown in this country. The Democrats dare not speak his name, and the only people attempting to expose and combat his political influence are wonky liberal intellectuals writing books that are read exclusively by other wonky liberal intellectuals. Soros, on the other hand, is the target of an emergent campaign of character assassination being carried out openly by the leading figures of the Republican party. What’s wrong with this picture? On my way home from work last night I watched young, self-styled “anarchists” protesting the Republican convention being herded into paddy wagons on 42nd Street. I realize that as a Kerry supporter I’m supposed to be appalled by these “deluded” people and their “counterproductive” tactics. But as I watched, and thought about the absolute contempt that the Republican leadership is showing for even the most basic standards of decency, I began to think that maybe it’s we “mainstream” types who are really deluded. We’re still trying to play by the rules. Our opponents—clinging ever more bizarrely to the label of “conservatives”—are out for power by any means necessary. And by the way, Josh Marshall reports that Hastert is reiterating his absolutely baseless slander of Soros at every opportunity.

By: paul

paul — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 05:10:38 +0000

Soros has sent a letter to Hastert, asking him in so many words, to put up or shut up: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/docs/soros.hastert.pdf But as commented above, slander is slander but what is heard will be remembered. It’s the modus operandi of the day. Lie and at a later date denounce the lies. But until that later date profit of the misperceptions the lies generated. As with the swifties, if you come out with a vigorous and remotely plausible lie, no one will be paying attention when it is demolished.

By: Gareth

Gareth — Wed, 01 Sep 2004 00:39:23 +0000

Soros should sue. Sue, George, sue.

By: matt

matt — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 18:53:08 +0000

One thing we do know, the Speaker has his head up his ass.

By: raj

raj — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 10:10:21 +0000

>We don’t know whether Mr. Hastert likes to have sex with little boys, or whether he likes black boys or latino boys in addition to white boys. We do know he enjoys watching boys roll around on the ground together, and used to give boys instructions as to how to cradle another boy in their arms. All of whom, given Hastert’s present girth, would need to be paid for. Given the salaries of congress people, it is likely that he would have to supplement his income in order to support his habit. Shall we say, supplemented by devious dealings with a few people from Colombia?

By: raj

raj — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 10:09:08 +0000

>We don’t know whether Mr. Hastert likes to have sex with little boys, or whether he likes black boys or latino boys in addition to white boys. We do know he enjoys watching boys roll around on the ground together, and used to give boys instructions as to how to cradle another boy in their arms. All of whom, given Hastert’s present girth, would need to be paid for. Given that the salaries of congress people, he would have to supplement his income to support his habit. Shall we say, supplemented by devious dealings with a few people from Colombia?

By: Peter Murphy

Peter Murphy — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 08:17:43 +0000

Steve Carr, If this was Britain, Soros would not be able to sue Hastert if he had spoken the words in Parliament: we would have “parliamentary privilege”, and could make shit up. Since he’s speaking on the news, he would be vulnerable for slander.

By: thehim

thehim — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 05:40:03 +0000

Ah, the beauty of when fat, stupid, Republicans get caught with irony sticking its foot up their ass. Hey Hastert, are you that much of a pussy that you can’t accept that a communist druggie like George Soros made his money by being smarter than all the other capitalists? Wuss.

By: fyreflye

fyreflye — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 04:10:03 +0000

I don’t really know if George W Bush was ejected from a spaceship over Roswell New Mexico in 1947 and sequestered in Area 51 until he was ready to emerge as the Arcturian Candidate for President, but there are those who’ve suggested as much and I really think the President owes them an explanation.

By: Barry

Barry — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 02:17:52 +0000

“There’s been a lot of shit out there, but this really is a new low. There really appears to be no brake at all on the careening of the Republican political machine towards the abyss of expedient lies and immoral insinuations. This is the FUCKING Speaker of the House, for god’s sake. If it was Bob Dornan or some other fool off his meds, that would be one thing, but this is a person where the dignity of his office ought to mean something.” Posted by Timothy Burke Timothy, if there’s one thing that the GOP has learned in the past few decades, it would be that going lower is a good bet. The only real question is to do it oneself, ‘naked’, so to speak, or to use a ‘condom’ (like the Swifties). Positive reinforcement. Combined with the fact that they lower the bar each time that they do it, so diminished expectations work for them. What did Krugman say about ‘revolutionary’ powers? They aren’t trying to take a bigger share in the system, they’re trying to smash the system, and grab it all.

By: IXLNXS

IXLNXS — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 02:15:56 +0000

“A technical point really, but if Soros was getting money from the drug cartels surely he wouldn’t be in favor of eliminating the profit margins associated with illegal drugs in America. More proof that Hastert’s a sad fool.” Ding ding ding! We have a winner. And yeah slander is slander but what is heard will be remembered. It’s the modus operandi of the day. Lie and at a later date denounce the lies. But until that later date profit of the misperceptions the lies generated. And wasn’t it folks in the “Heritage Foundation” who recently published a memo saying it would be better for america to legalize most drugs and regulate them much as we do cigaretttes and alcohal? But on a more serious note. I met this bum downtown who states he used to have sex with Dennis Hasstert of Washington on a regular basis. Seems the speaker was into being ridden like a donkey.

By: asg

asg — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:19:35 +0000

I seem to have a guardian angel. Every time I consider becoming a Republican, a Republican does something to remind me why I can never do so.

By: Sebastian Holsclaw

Sebastian Holsclaw — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:02:00 +0000

The Hastert comment is ridiculous. And probably libel.

By: Scorpio

Scorpio — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:43:35 +0000

We don’t know whether bin Laden has taken advice from Hastert. We don’t know whether Hastert kept a good accounting of all the drugs he was given over the years. We don’t know how much Bush drinks—or what.

By: arthur

arthur — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 22:10:01 +0000

George Soros is a mamber of the same world-spanning conspiracy as 9/11 pilot Mohammed Atta, former CIA director George Tenet, and Camobodian hitman Lon Nol, and Burmese prime minister U Nu, among others. Never trust a palindrome.