I. A short story Bernie found the smudged faxed document in a dumpster, where it had accidentally been placed instead of being shredded, even though the word
SHRED was stamped on the page in big red letters. It was winter in north Texas, and the usually mild weather had turned icy overnight. His windbreaker did not keep out the cold norther that was breathing down his neck. So, he lined his coat with paper and huddled in an alley over a bottle of wine. The next available appointment at the VA psych clinic was two months off. Every time a car backfired, he just about jumped out his skin. He had been discharged for a knee injury and partial hearing loss, but his ears weren’t so bad that he could not hear loud noises like gunshots and ambulances and car crashes on the freeway. And each time, another layer of sweat was added to the accumulation that made his skin crawl and itch so badly that sometimes he wanted to scratch it all off so he could creep out of himself, return to what he had been five years ago.
Alcohol eased the pain, but coming off the bottle made the memories three times more unbearable. At two am on a Sunday night, when frost covered the streets and the city was strangely quiet, Bernie hanged himself from a streetlamp using his belt. Because north Texas drivers fear icy roads, no one found him for over an hour. When they did, his story barely made a blip in the headlines about freeway pileups.
At the morgue, they stripped his body and sent his clothes to the Salvation Army to be refurbished for the poor, who were in unusually dire straights that year. The papers lining his coat were tossed into the recycle bin. Once a week, the city collected the trash. The recycle goods went to a special center where they were sorted. One of the attendants noted the
SHRED and surreptitiously snatched up the paper while no one was looking. He had a lawyer friend who paid him for finds like that. It helped pay the rent.
The lawyer handed him the usual twenty.
“It worth anything?” asked the recycling attendant.
“Dunno yet,” the lawyer mumbled. He had barely glanced at the document, but something about the way his fingers tightened on the crumbled, stained page made the recycling guy wonder if this time he should have asked for more.
Alone, the young attorney smoothed out the smudged faxed document. Parts were so blurred that they would never be recovered. Someone had torn away the header, so it was impossible to tell who had sent the letter and to whom or even when it was generated. However, the subject matter was clear:
“Fear and Loathing 2008: Dividing the Democrats
“We will beat the Democrats this year the way that we beat them in 1972, 1980 and 1984---by dividing them. Democratic unity is at its most vulnerable during a recession. You can always get the working man to blame some other working man for his economic woes. Whites will blame Blacks and the welfare state. Blacks and whites will blame Latinos for depressing wages. Women will blame men for making twice as much as they do for the same work.
“Right now Democrats are united in their hatred of the war and of the president. However, once they start losing their homes and their jobs, the war is not going to matter as much as getting immediate financial relief----and finding someone to scapegoat. All we have to do is offer the Democrats someone to blame and make sure that they focus their anger on members of their own party.
“The first step is making sure that the Democrats nominate
unreadable This will allow two rival factions in the equal rights struggle to clash. This will add a degree of urgency to each candidate’s campaign. All other candidates should be marginalized by the press. The race should be framed as a two way contest as soon as possible.
“In addition, the contest should be portrayed as a contest between a WOMAN and a BLACK. This can be done by distorting remarks that the female candidate and her surrogates make about her opponent to create the impression that she is racially insensitive and then finding prominent African-Americans who are willing to issue public statements denouncing those (distorted) statements. The same can be
unreadable prominent feminists will be quoted about gender insensitive comments.
“As in 1972, direct attacks by one candidate against the other can be staged with the help of the press
unreadable anonymous internet bloggers pretending to be Democrat supporters. Democratic message boards should be infiltrated with the goal of encouraging a high degree of animosity within the party so that the winner, whoever it will be, is disinclined to campaign
unreadable the loser’s constituency feels that the winner engaged in ‘ugly’ politics.
“A brokered Democratic Convention such as the one in 1968 and 1972 is ideal, since this will allow us to stage protests and perform other dirty tricks that will give the impression that Democrats are ‘soft on terrorism’. It does not matter which candidate is the eventual nominee. If the Black is the nominee, then the Democrats lose the Reagan Democrats, who will cross over to vote for the Republican
unreadable the Democratic nominee will reject them and their economic need
unreadable rejected the white Democratic candidate simply because of her race. The Democrats will also lose their traditional advantage among women, who will be angry at the charges of sexism that have been leveled at the Black candidate.
“If the woman is the nominee, the Democrats will lose their advantage among African-American voters
unreadable . As in 1972, many Blacks will stay home. Also, more liberal Democrats will show their anger by voting for third party candidates such as Nader. Since the woman in this case is despised by many Republicans, she will increase turn out of the GOP base, making up for the loss of Reagan Democrat vote.
“The thing we must be on guard against is a ticket that includes both candidates, since this will completely negate the effect of Operation Fear and Loathing. If the two candidates are seen to put aside their differences and form a single ticket, then the Democratic voters will take this as a sign that all the animosity which they have witnessed was just political posturing. Worse, from our point of view, it will enable Democrats to mobilize all portions of their base. Blacks who want the first Black president (or vice president) and women who want the first female president (or vice president) will not be deterred by the presence of the other candidate on the same ticket. Add to these the usual Democratic voters—liberals, union members, Latinos---and it is difficult to anticipate what the effect will be on the fall 2008 elections. There could be a voter backlash against such a radically new combination. However, with former president Bill Clinton backing half the ticket---and reminding voters of the relative prosperity of the last Democratic administration---an Obama/Clinton ticket or a Clinton/Obama ticket should be the thing we work hardest to avoid in the year to come.
“I write this secure in the knowledge that no one will ever discover
unreadable since we do not need to burglarize any campaign offices to learn the opposition’s secrets, not with the NSA doing such a fine job of monitoring”
the rest of the document is unreadable The lawyer clutched the document in one hand, and his cellphone in the other. He had the numbers of the chairmans of the local Republican Party and the local Democratic Party in his friends list. He also had the numbers of several reporters for the Morning News. But the piece of fax paper had no date, no signature, no addressee. For all he knew it was a prank. Just a worthless piece of political satire.
He glanced over his shoulder at the window. The shades were lowered. The street outside was deserted, even if anyone could have seen through the narrow two inch gap between the fabric and the wall. He opened his left lower desk drawer and shoved the paper all the way to the back. And locked the drawer. And hid the key in the dirt at the bottom of a philodendron. Just in case.
The End
II. Some useful references:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/watergate/stories/buchananmemo.htm Republican presidential candidate Patrick J. Buchanan strongly favored a plan of "covert operations" to harass and embarrass Democratic contenders in the heady days at the Nixon White House before the Watergate scandal.
Then a White House speechwriter and enthusiastic member of the Nixon campaign's "attack group," Buchanan laid out his ideas in an April 10, 1972, memo looking ahead to that summer's Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach. It was addressed to Attorney General John N. Mitchell and White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman.
On the memo's last page -- one never turned over to Watergate congressional investigators -- Buchanan and his top aide recommended staging counterfeit attacks by one Democrat on another, fouling up scheduled events, arranging demonstrations and spreading rumors to plague the rival party, all the while being careful not to run afoul of the Secret Service.
snip
"The preparation of attacks on one Democrat by another -- and 'endorsements' of one Democrat by another, which has to be repudiated, are examples of what can be done. Nothing should be done here, incidentally, which can seriously backfire and anything done should be cleared by the highest campaign authority. The Secret Service, it should be noted, will be all over Miami; and any activity will have to take into consideration their capabilities.
"We should guard here against a) anything which enables the Democrats to blame us for the mess which takes place in Miami Beach; b) anything which can be traced back to us and c) anything which is so horrendous as to damage us, if the hand is discovered."
The memo was labeled "CONFIDENTIAL"
http://wonkette.com/392039/why-is-pat-buchanan-so-angry-these-days-anyway Buchanan, of course, hit the national stage as an adviser and speechwriter for President Nixon. You know how the entire electoral map shifted in Republicans' favor in 1968, guaranteeing them 7 out of 10 presidencies ever since? That was Pat's brainchild. This has all been documented well and good, but in an epic new piece from the New Yorker, the writer, George Packer, quotes from a 1971 memo Buchanan wrote to Nixon. For some strange reason, Buchanan voluntarily gave this to Packer:
Buchanan gave me a copy of a seven-page confidential memorandum—"A little raw for today," he warned—that he had written for Nixon in 1971, under the heading "Dividing the Democrats." Drawn up with an acute understanding of the fragilities and fault lines in "the Old Roosevelt Coalition," it recommended that the White House "exacerbate the ideological division" between the Old and New Left by praising Democrats who supported any of Nixon's policies; highlight "the elitism and quasi-anti-Americanism of the National Democratic Party"; nominate for the Supreme Court a Southern strict constructionist who would divide Democrats regionally; use abortion and parochial-school aid to deepen the split between Catholics and social liberals; elicit white working-class support with tax relief and denunciations of welfare. Finally, the memo recommended exploiting racial tensions among Democrats. "Bumper stickers calling for black Presidential and especially Vice-Presidential candidates should be spread out in the ghettoes of the country," Buchanan wrote. "We should do what is within our power to have a black nominated for Number Two, at least at the Democratic National Convention." Such gambits, he added, could "cut the Democratic Party and country in half; my view is that we would have far the larger half."
: I cite MSNBC because, inexplicably, that network has allowed Buchanan to do analysis of the Democratic Primary despite his well documented history of being a professional Democratic primary dirty tricks operative for the Republicans. On the night of the New Hampshire primary he said
PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Chris, I think the important thing that we ought to look at is not what the candidates did but what the people of New Hampshire said. In the final three days, what they said, I think, is we‘re tired of Hillary Clinton being beaten up as she is by the other Democrats and by the press, and we don‘t want the media telling us who our Messiah is going to be.
And older folks above 40, and women especially, came out and rescued Hillary Rodham Clinton. Now, this has great portent, I think, for the future, because Barack Obama, he got the young people and he got the educated, the ones with the PHD.s. Now when this goes to South Carolina, Chris, I think what is going to happen is Barack Obama may very well win that and do very well among African-Americans, and the Democratic party will break down into a youth, African-Americans and educated against the Humphrey coalition, sort of McGovern versus Humphrey, working class women, elderly with Hillary.
And this looks like really the paradigm going forward for the Democratic nomination.
Snip
BUCHANAN: OK, look, that does not invalidate the breakdown that is coming, it seems to me, which is the women in the Democratic party, those over 40, certainly those over 50, are not going to have the candidate of youth and the candidate of the African-Americans imposed upon them. That‘s what New Hampshire said. And now you go to South Carolina and it‘s going to be looked at in that I think paradigm.
When that happens, I think there‘s real potential for a very savage split in the Democratic party along the lines of ’72.
A later primary
BUCHANAN: We‘ve been talking about how bad it‘s going to be in the Democratic Party if something terrible is done to poor Barack Obama. Let me tell you. I was down in Miami Dade, came up—I talked to four women who told me if Barack gets this thing, I‘m a Hillary person, I‘m going for McCain. There are a lot of women out there who have a strong vested interest and are as dedicated to Hillary as African-Americans are to Barack Obama.
SCARBOROUGH: Every single time I hear.
BUCHANAN: Let me tell you—and if she is perceived as being pushed out of the race, you know, Rachel Maddow‘s word, get out for the good of the party, I think you‘re going to have a real problem.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, every single time, Gene, I start hearing women in my family, my very Republican family saying it‘s terrible what they are doing to Hillary Clinton. I know it‘s time for Barack Obama to duck. They did it before New Hampshire. They did it before California, and I‘ve been hearing it all week.
This is pretty funny coming from a guy who said
http://mediamatters.org/items/200802260002 On the February 26 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, political analyst Pat Buchanan asserted that when Sen. Hillary Clinton "raises her voice, and when a lot of women do, you know, it's -- as I say -- it reaches a point ... where every husband in America ... has heard at one time or another."
And
http://mediamatters.org/items/200802270004 Referring to comments he had made about Sen. Hillary Clinton's voice, MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan said on the February 27 edition of Morning Joe, "Look, the famous Dr. Johnson, and I hate to repeat it, said, you know, 'To see a woman speaking is to watch a dog walking on its hind legs ... Sure, he said you're surprised not to see it done -- not that it's not done well, but to see it done at all."
And if you need
proof that Buchanan is playing his audience for fools how about the way he spins the same fact--Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" comment--two exactly different ways, in order to fan two different fires within the Democratic Party.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/01/ghettoizing_barack.html Then Bill Clinton told a Dartmouth audience that Obama's claim to being consistently antiwar was a "fairy tale."
snip
In three weeks, Barack has been ghettoized. The crossover candidate, the great liberal hope, has become a Jesse Jackson, who is ceded the black vote and a few states, then given a speaking role at the convention, as the party moves on to the serious business of electing a president.
http://www.creators.com/opinion/pat-buchanan/race-cards-and-speech-codes.html "Give me a break. This whole thing is the biggest fairy tale I've ever seen."
So said Bill Clinton in New Hampshire of Obama's claim to have been a constant opponent of the war. Clinton cited Obama's voting record, which was the same as Hillary's in his early Senate years.
Yet, for this, the ex-president, designated by Toni Morrison as "our first black president," was charged with playing the race card.
Clinton spent days explaining the "fairy tale" remark.
Came then the morning of the South Carolina primary, where Barack was rolling up a smashing victory. Bill volunteered: "Jesse Jackson won in South Carolina, twice, in '84 and '88. And he ran a good campaign, and Sen. Obama's running a good campaign."
That broke it. Bill Clinton was openly "playing the race card."
Now, undoubtedly, Clinton was trying to belittle, to diminish the importance of the South Carolina vote for Obama. But why is it racist to say what Clinton was implying: That, in a Southern state where a huge share of the Democratic vote is African-American, a strong black presidential candidate can be expected to do well?
Political history proves this. What is racist about saying it?
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