eloisel, on Oct 2 2005, 06:55 AM, said:
I'll look around but it suddenly occurred to me that what the author of that post might have meant: some of K Street is, I think, politically unaffiliated. It's possible that Republicans control vast swathes of the politically aligned portions of K Street but relatively little of K Street as a whole.
Incidentally, check out the burgeoning Abramoff scandal. Not only has he been indicted for millions of dollars of corruption -- which is particularly fun because this indictment has now spread to investigations of ten, I think, top GOP politicians -- he's just (i.e. three days ago) been connected to a gangland slaying of a Florida businessman. And Abramoff is hooked
deep into the GOP money machine...
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Interesting because the Democrat party line is so anti-corporate. Or is it only anti-corporate toward the corporations that don't put money in their pockets?
First, as waterpanther said, it's the
Democratic party. I don't know if you're aware of the history of the term "Democrat" party, but let's just say that IMO there's enough bad blood there to automatically contaminate anyone who uses it.
Second, the Democratic party line isn't anti-corporate. Check any of the releases from the DNC, the DLC or any other major Democratic party organs; they're all avowedly pro-business, and they have been for at least 10 years [Arguably, even longer still.] They're not as ridiculously pro-corporate as the Republicans -- and they're certainly not pro-corporate-to-the-expense-of-everyone-else as some of the more extreme GOP members -- but there are certainly prominent pro-corporate elected Democrats (Biden and Lieberman leap to mind, although I'm sure there are others).
[And if you want to see truly craven capitulation to corporate interests, check the vote on the recent bankruptcy bill. A true legislative abomination if I've ever seen one.]
Third, there is a major movement within the liberal/progressive milieu to limit the power and effectiveness of large corporations but that movement has yet to reach the leadership of the Democratic party and probably never will. Given the staggering corruption of the Republican party right now -- to repeat Spectacles' remarks, this is the new Gilded Age -- it's conceivable the Democrats might make a tactical decision to renounce all special interest/corporate funding, thereby setting themselves up as the party of righteousness. [And I think they'd be right to do it, too.] Given the cowardice of the DNC/DLC crew, however, I'm not holding my breath.
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Would be interested to know what you think President Bush has flip-flopped on. Have to disagree that Kerry as a flip-flopper is purely projection - he is and blatantly so. However, agreed, needs be we must look to the future.
<{POST_SNAPBACK}>
First, the "projection offense" (my term, btw, I don't know that there is a standard one) is to tar your opponent with your failings, irrespective of whether they suffer from them are not, so that any attack they make on you comes across as "Yeah? Well,
you're a..." It's a viciously, viciously effective tactic, generally because people are ill-informed and the media's too frickin' stupid -- or cowardly, or cozy, or inured in the cult of faux-objectivity -- to inform them.
Second, rather than try to expostulate myself, 'cause there are too damn many to count, I'll link to Dwight Meredith over at Wampum:
Second Installment (8 flip-flops)
Third Installment (3 flip-flops)
Fourth Installment (3 flip-flops)
Fifth Installment (6 flip-flops)
Sixth Installment (4 flip-flops)
I can vouch for almost all of those as being accurately reported, as well as there being plenty more to document had RL not impinged on Dwight's annotations. If you're really tendentious, you can check out Compassiongate's comprehensive (perhaps too comprehensive) list of
172 flip-flops, but I make no such vouching.
ETA: Thanks to
Spectacles for the 87 billion catch; forgot to include it in my response.
Edited by Anarch, 02 October 2005 - 01:08 PM.