Sleaze-hit Republicans will recover: White House ["vigorously promote an ethics agenda" '

[rodeodance]

Source: (AFP) -

Sleaze-hit Republicans will recover: White House

1 hour, 18 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) - President George W. Bush's Republicans have suffered from sleaze revelations but will bounce back in elections next year, a top White House aide said Sunday after a senator's sex-scandal resignation.


"I think we have suffered," Bush's senior counselor Ed Gillespie said on Fox News.

"In the last election (for Congress) in 2006 we saw damage to the GOP brand when it came to ethics," he said, referring to the Republican party's Grand Old Party nickname.
..............

The announcement was strongly encouraged by national Republican leaders, worried that the scandal would taint all candidates from the socially conservative party in the 2008 White House and congressional elections.


Gillespie said Republicans would "vigorously promote an ethics agenda" and stressed, "I think that we will not have candidates who have any kind of ethical considerations that will be a concern to the voters come 2008."

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070902/pl_afp/uspoliticsethics;_ylt=AtOw9dnuIvurZaHOf7UlOiKyFz4D

[niyad]

1. isn't this the same person who said that, in general, the surge is working? what IS he smoking?

[msongs]

2. illegal wars murdering 100'oo's of thousands of people and destroying Iraq= ethics - who will call

him out on this? Let's hope at least ONE dems contender will call his bluff.

got to hand it to the repubs tho, they are the MASTERS of PR.

Msongs

[TheCowsCameHome]

3. For God's sake, look who's saying this - a big RW flack!

Yeah, sure Ed...............

[mwb970]

29. Why do they even have Gillespie on these shows?

Every response can be predicted if you are familiar with current right-wing talking points, as I proved by beating Gillespie to each answer. I got them all right!

If a guest's answers are perfectly predictable, then what information is conveyed by having them on a "news" show? Is this journalism or brain-dead advocacy?

[Skittles]

4. repukes promoting ethics

is like pimps promoting abstinence

[Ian David]

7. Hey, if Bush can find black people to pose with him in New Orleans...

than SURELY The GOP can find people who still believe they are the family of Family Values and Integrity.

[shraby]

5. Didn't they just require ethics training last year when

they had goo on their fingers before?

[Ian David]

6. Yay! Witch Hunt in the Republick Party! Yay! That will leave them with... what? Five candidates? n/t

[0rganism]

23. No way, it's much more efficient for them to witch hunt the Democratic party

"vigorously promote an ethics agenda" == "find and create as much dirt as possible about Democratic candidates by any means"

They don't have to be ethical, they just have to seem more ethical than the Democrats they're running against.

[Solly Mack]

8. snort...

[high density]

9. Forever now the Grand Old Potty

Adios, Republics.

[kestrel91316]

10. "Ethics agenda", eh? Is that sort of like "family values"??

We'll see how THIS color of lipstick looks on the pig.

[rodeodance]

12. they keep trying but those little fowleys, vitters and craigs keep popping up.

[triguy46]

11. They are always the finest of people, until they get caught. What a steaming crock of shit.

[Ishoutandscream2]

13. Yeah, these same old "ethics agendas"

make them look even more hypocritical. Isn't this what it's all about?

[deacon]

14. ROFL! Does he know Rudy's a candidate??? lol!

[Kagemusha]

15. Ethics = only cheat on the wife with other women, not men

That's Republican ethics.

[Tuttle]

31. or...

plead guilty to lesser charges, resign, then start the whisper campaign, indicating that "you did nothing wrong"

Now THERE'S some ethics!

Tut-tut

[alfredo]

16. If you are a betting man or woman

Looks like there are several sites that are taking bets on the election. One variable, will the values voter hold their nose and vote for continued sleaze.

http://specials.slate.com/futures/2008/

[tanyev]

17. Bush did promise in 2000 to bring honor and dignity back to the White House.

He neglected to mention that first he was going to take to depths it had never been before.

[SalmonChantedEvening]

18. So the GOP will have non-republics as candidates in 2008?

Interesting strategy! :rofl:

[Cant trust em]

19. and we'll be here to remind people of their hypocrisy

The Republicans should concede this issue for a while. If they're smart they'll beat the shit out of their guys who they know are closeted sex fiends and institute a zero tolerance policy internally. They have no credibility to talk about ethics right now with every sex scandal since Clinton siding on the right.

[gulliver]

20. That's the end of the GOP then.

Low ethical standards is their nucleus.

[Ilsa]

21. Oh no. Not the ethics, morality, and family values schtick again.

Won't these nosy, sexually repressed, greedy bastards ever learn? The media and the rest of us will stay out of their private, imperfect lives lives when they promise to do the same for us and stop preaching about it.

[0rganism]

22. Read between the lines people, this is NOT about GOP "ethics"

What Gillespie's "bounce-back" will necessarily consist of is a rebalancing of the ethical scales. How will they accomplish such a thing, given that half or more of their elected officials and campaign staff are tainted by some scandal or other? Easy.

They will use their crony-crammed justice department to unleash a corporate media-fueled purge of the Democratic party.

Any elected or appointed Democrat from the municipal level on up who's less pure than the driven snow should be looking over his shoulder on a regular basis, cos there might just be a big old "Kick Me" sign stuck on there come next September. See, the Republicans don't have to actually be ethical, they just have to seem more ethical than the Democrats.

I just hope Dean & co. are able to see around the smokescreen to the essence of what "vigorously promote an ethics agenda" really means.

[GoddessOfGuinness]

24. The sleaze is less of a problem than the hypocrisy

They need to get out of the American bedroom and start taking care of real problems. The government is not a fucking church.

[creeksneakers2]

25. Ed Gillespie is a bad place to start reforming

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ed_Gillespie


In May 2003, conservative columnist Robert Novak reported that "Both the White House and members of the Republican National Committee (RNC) have made clear that Ed Gillespie will have to cut ties completely from his profitable Washington lobbying firm (Quinn Gillespie & Associates) to take over as the party's national chairman." However, the Washington Post reported in June that "Gillespie is not divesting ownership of the 27-person firm and will continue receiving partnership income."

Public Citizen has published a 25-page report calling Gillespie "an embedded lobbyist" and asserting that his appointment as RNC chairman "has opened a conduit for corporate America to strengthen its already formidable influence in the White House and Congress."

[salin]

26. Right. When we learn John Doolittle, Jerry Lewis,

Don Young, Ted Stevens, and all others currently under FBI investigation, step down and decide to resign (and not run in 2008) - then perhaps you'll have a shot at this PR ploy. Til then it just makes your party look silly ala "we are not corrupt!" while one by one folks are trotted off to jail or the like.

[aquart]

27. Ah. Rolling out the new product for September?

[salin]

28. but I think there is already a recall due to product defects

:D

[Vinca]

30. They'd better rethink this - there are more snakes under the rock. nt

[David__77]

32. Foolish error.

Focusing on this matter will only intensify the focus on the strategic weakness of GOP candidates. I think they would have been smarter to play the "terror" card again, arguing that all else pales in comparison. That probably wouldn't work either, except with their base, but it'd be better than this "ethics" stuff.

[SpiralHawk]

33. "Ethics are our, um, speciality, smirk" - Commander AWOL

[DavidMS]

34. Isn't that like a pedophile arguing for child protection laws?

I really can't see the republicans managing to stick to their new diet.

The best thing the Republicans can do is admit they have a corruption problem and deal with it by not standing for election.

[mac56]

35. "Damage to the GOP brand..."

Oh puh-leez.

Referring to it as a "brand", nothing more than the label on a box of corn flakes, is so disingenuous.

[rocktivity]

36. Not with Vitter on board, they won't.

Because if we can't compare Vitter's confession with Craigs, we can certainly compare it to Bill Clinton's! It's okay to commit crimes as long as you're not caught?

:headbang:
rocknation