So Joe Klein says the '94 whisper campaign about Ann Richards..

[ClusterFreak]

....being a lesbian did not go all the way up to Dubya...

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

[SammyWinstonJack]

1. LOL!

That's a good one! I agree, Bull. Fucking. Shit. He's probably the one who first thought of it. The mean little worm.

[dogday]

2. I love that, they said he didn't even know

if Rove knew it and I laughed, it was either that or puke...

[gratuitous]

3. Joe Klein is such a mixed bag

Sometimes he almost approaches actual consciousness, but soon lapses back into a comatose state with only amoeba-like responses typical of so many of his journalistic brethren. Which is what makes his idiotic comments in this matter so much worse.

[Jim Sagle]

11. Yeah...half horseshit and half bullshit.

[chaumont58]

17. Amen, brudder

He is a poster boy for our wonderful beltway whores.

[Jim Sagle]

24. The classic ImADemocratBut Democrat, as in

"I'm a Democrat, but Clinton's BJ was the end of civilization as we know it." :puke:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. I remember when Ann Richards was elected

governor. We were living in Texas then, and had several gay/lesbian friends. They were glad a progressive was elected, but I don't recall anyone saying Ann was a lesbian, and I'd think that the glbt community would have known, especially those in Austin. We moved before the swine and his minions lied their way into the statehouse, so I don't know what the glbt community was saying at that time. Anyone from TX know?

[Ilene Dover]

6. Strange bedfellows

Odd that there isn't such a whispering campaign against Condoleeza, who should be thought suspicious by those who assume every single woman over 30 is a lesbian.

[Maestro]

28. Condi is not gay

She is just such a bitch that no man will have her!

[PinkTiger]

7. Can I ask the meaning of the initials glbt?

Curious. I figured it was gay lesbian, but don't understand the b and t.

Thanks.

[bettyellen]

8. bisexual and transgender. nt

[PinkTiger]

22. Thanks! nt

[kenny blankenship]

16. Bacon and Tomato

[PinkTiger]

21. But where is the lettuce? nt

[musette_sf]

23. My question about the GLBT community in Austin is...

what do they know about Gubner Goodhair, and when did they know it? ;)

[babylonsister]

5. I heard that and thought likewise. Don't tell me Rove

and the blivet don't talk and conspire; he is, after all, Bush's brain. BTW, welcome to DU, C_L_S! :hi:

[ClusterFreak]

14. thanks!

:)

[blm]

9. No media will talk about Bush's years as a political strategist alaAtwater

and Rove.

Fer chrissakes, Bush ran with those two since the early 70s and his mean, vindictive pettiness is well known just like his nasty mother.

The media fears what he will do to THEM - like all those journalists who lost their jobs in the 80s....or were .....suicided....or accidented.

[emulatorloo]

29. A topic that deserves its own thread, every day on DU

for those DU'ers who aren't aware of GWB's love for dirty tricks atwater style

[blm]

33. I agree. I bring it up often, but never often enough.

The info needs to get around more. Bush was and IS a political hatchet man and he's running the WH like War Room, and even promoting TREASON if it serves to payt back his political enemies.

[sundancekid]

10. and God made TX bullshit white too...we were there then, it was busheviks

[Kerrytravelers]

12. And I bet kline would also say the lies regarding the Iraq Invasion

doesn't go all the way up to *, either.

[Benhurst]

13. Yeah, like Joe Klein has credibility.

[UTUSN]

15. Ah, RAYGUNized Sainthood Is on the Way for Shrub n/t

[pretzel4gore]

18. the issue's klien and the pigmediawhores

forget bimbo and the giggling brutes....
the pigmedia is finessing bushinc's survival (some on DU marvel at how a lying prez can start an illegal war resulting in 1800 US deaths plus 100000 innocent iraqis, and gets away with it!) well, bimbo gets away with it cuz pigs like klien, miller, novak limbah-humbug, oreally, foxnews's brite hum, anus the coulter, jay leno, the ny times, AP, reuters, cbs nbc ad nazism were creating lotsa distractions, even when they were exposing bush's vileness, the pigmedia still treated the people like bull, and they a matador in a bullfight, one red flag after another, and we chasing it (giggle giggle)

[GoldenOldie]

19. Karen Huges a 2-bit journalist at the time was specifically hired

To go on the attack with the lesbian lies about Ann Richards.

So a 2-bit Journalist who climbed the administrative ladder is now given a made up title of "Diplomacy Tsar" as her reward??????

Only in this Killing Fields administration!

[Judi Lynn]

20. Looks like it worked for them. It even got "into the public record"

Bush's 1994 race against Ann Richards featured a rumor that she was a lesbian, along with a rare instance of such a tactic's making it into the public record—when a regional chairman of the Bush campaign allowed himself, perhaps inadvertently, to be quoted criticizing Richards for "appointing avowed homosexual activists" to state jobs.
(snip)

http://shininglight.us/mt/archives/politics/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ann Richards didn't let it get her down. I heard someone on a tv interview, possibly Ann Richards herself, say that it was laughed about by Ann Richards, friends, associates, and they discussed the idea of a new game in which the contestants would be required to drive across Texas with signs in the window of their cars saying "I'm an Ann Richard homosexual and I'm going to grab your guns."

They claimed the winner would be the one who reached the other side of the state.

[journalist3072]

25. I was really POed with Joe Kline today......and proof that he's wrong

I thought he was "one of us"----meaning, proud members of the reality based community.

But he showed today that he is not.

He said he doesn't think these personal attacks against Bush opponents (i.e. Ann Richards and John McCain) make it all the way to Bush.

However, an excerpt from the 11/20/2000 issue of Time Magazine (a special about the election impass) shows that Bush personally approved the South Carolina attacks on John McCain. Notice especially the first line of the last paragraph that says "Briefed later that day in his hotel suite, Bush agreed to the battle plan." Does anyone know how I can send this information to Klein?

Anyway, here's the excerpt:

"The trick was to try to cast McCain as a phony, take a guy with a consistently conservative voting record and paint him as a dangerous liberal, suggest that the war hero was somehow un-American, or at least un-South Carolinian. Out came the antipersonnel weapons: "He's not one of us," and "He doesn't share our conservative values," and "He's outside the mainstream." On McCain's lack of "conservative values," Rove piped up to say, "We have to get in his face on that. He's vulnerable." Added Tompkins: "He's an insider. When I hear this populist stuff, it makes me wanna throw up."

But who could put out the message, given Bush's promise to be a uniter, not a divider? Several outside groups, including the National Right to Life Coalition, Americans for Tax Reform and the National Rifle Association, stepped right up. "Right to Life will do radio; A.T.R. will do TV ads," said one of Bush's South Carolina advisers. Even though coordinating with third-party groups is illegal, the discussion explicitly revolved around the idea that these groups could be counted on to do whatever it took--whether it was running ads, passing out literature or making phone calls--to destroy McCain and save Bush.

Briefed later that day in his hotel suite, Bush agreed to the battle plan. The next 18 days would be the ugliest of his political career. In the heart of the Confederacy, phone callers and leaflets attacked McCain's wife's drug addiction, made racial attacks on McCain's adopted Bangladeshi daughter and warned of "McCain's fag army." Bush won the state by 11 points."

[pretzel4gore]

26. all that to beat a sissy?

wimpy mccain...what a fukked maroon

[wli]

31. An army of lovers cannot fail

So they want to smear "McCain's fag army." Well, history provides some rather dramatic examples of such armies, in particular the Sacred Band of Thebes, being incredible successes, whose sole defeat was by the combined forces of Alexander the Great and his father, whose armies were not so different from the one they overcame. Alexander in particular is a special case, as he was never defeated.

[Maestro]

27. Just because Ann Richards could kick *'s, Klein's and Rove's

ass in a WWF smackdown does not make her a lesbian. Idiots.

[wli]

30. why should such a whisper campaign work?

So you say in response, "So, they say she's a Lesbian. What's wrong with that? Well, nothing. In fact, we could use more GLBT representation in government since there is now near-zero presence. And if it's a lie, well, there's a far larger problem with the liars than the supposed homosexuals."

Somehow I suspect this counter-tactic is not going to work in the Bible Belt.

[charlie]

32. 1994

In Texas. That would've been regarded as moonspeak. Scary moonspeak. More queers needed in gummint? Uh-uh.

Remember the genteel, patrician Lloyd Bentsen? He once whupped George W Bush with a campaign that all but accused Poppy of being in bed with the Viet Cong. Sensationalist campaigns devoid of serious issues were the norm in Texas long before the practice infected national elections.

[applegrove]

34. I'm sure Bush didn't know. He is the patsy. The prissy, patrician neocons

dreamed of in 1965 (to be their electable leader easily controlled as he has anal issues). The sociopaths in the political arm of Bush campaign do the dirty work & start the 'whisper'. They always do.