The Levers of Power

Here is a bit from an article by Jdd Legum and David Sirota in The Nation. It shows how Bush and his gang of fanatics used the levers of power to coerce the country. This from Bush who made a big deal of "strict construction" of the Constitution was in fact the president who corrupted and broke more of the Constitution than any preceeding president:

On August 11, John Kerry criticized the Bush Administration for blocking a bipartisan plan to give seniors access to lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada. With almost 80 percent of Medicare recipients supporting Kerry's position, the Bush campaign was faced with the prospect of defending a politically unpopular position.

That same day, in an interview with the Associated Press, FDA Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford said terrorist "cues from chatter" led him to believe Al Qaeda may try to attack Americans by contaminating imported prescription drugs. Crawford refused to provide any details to substantiate his claims.

Asked about Crawford's comments, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security was forced to concede, "We have no specific information now about any Al Qaeda threats to our food or drug supply." The Administration had brazenly used Americans' justifiable fears of a future terrorist attack to parry a routine criticism of its policies.

How did it come to this?

Crawford's comments were the latest iteration of a political strategy--hatched in the days after 9/11--that has spiraled out of control. What started as an effort to leverage early support for the President on national security issues has expanded into the politicization of our country's safety and security infrastructure. That process has damaged the credibility of the federal government and made all Americans less secure.

The use of power to cynically manipulate voters means there is no "even play ground" on which an election can be held. It means the incumbent can use state power to put a thumb on the scales and come up with any result he wants.

Go read the whole article, it walks you through the various manipulations of the electorate by the Bush administration.

This is the political manipulation which drives me to despair:

White House political director Ken Mehlman developed a secret PowerPoint presentation--which was made public after being dropped in a park--urging Republican candidates to highlight fears of future terrorist attacks. In the most outrageous example, Georgia Senate candidate Saxby Chambliss, who had avoided service in Vietnam, ran campaign commercials drawing parallels between triple amputee Vietnam War veteran Max Cleland and Osama bin Laden.

The tragedy is that this cruel manipulation worked. Cleland was defeated by the phoney "patriot" Saxby, a blowheart who beat his chest about patriotism but in fact never risked his own skin.