Monday, July 11, 2005

The Emperor's New Clothes

Interesting post today on the Drudge Report about MoveOn.org's effort to sanitize itself. Since Drudge frequently changes his flash reports, the text is below:

REVEALED: INSIDE A MOVEON SUPREME COURT HOUSE PARTY; TAKE 'BUSH LIAR' T-SHIRTS OFF
Sun Jul 10 2005 20:29:27 ET
**Exclusive**

Over the weekend, the liberal activist group MOVEON.ORG hosted over house parties across the nation to stop President Bush from nominating a “radical right judge” -- and the DRUDGE REPORT obtained an exclusive invite to one of their hottest parties!

Charles Fazio of Alexandria, VA was the host of one of the most widely attended MOVEON parties in the Washington, DC area. The DRUDGE REPORT has learned because of Fazio’s registration success, his party was chosen to be a finalist on the WASHINGTON POST’s list of house party events the paper would cover.

In a desperate bid to sanitize his gathering and control how its attendees would be perceived by the POST, the MOVEON host emailed talking points to his guests. A copy of those talking points was obtained by the DRUDGE REPORT.

Fazio warned his guests: “Its very important that if you talk to the reporter, you stay on message. Remember, it is quite possible that our event will be the one the POST uses to represent the entire MoveOnPac effort this weekend.”

The key message for the event: “The momentum is finally shifting away from extremism. We will not accept a extremist nominee. This is not about conservatism vs liberalism or Republicans vs Democrats, this is all about extremism vs moderation and we're on the side of moderation.”

The MOVEON host reminded his guests: “We don't want to come across as leftist, liberal activists. We want to come across as we are- regular folks who are finally saying enough is enough to the extremists; that we're not falling for their extremist rhetoric anymore and we're finally going to expend the effort necessary to get our country back.”

Fazio: “Please stay on message and just know that ANYTHING you say can be taken out of context and used against the effort.”

One last suggestion from Fazio to his liberal MOVEON party-goers: “Oh, because a photographer will be here, might I suggest we put away our ‘Bush is a Liar’ t-shirts. Let's look like they do.”

Developing...
Amazing. The far Left, like most radical groups, has finally recognized that the truth hurts: Americans don't like far Left extremists. So it attempts to smear mainstream thinkers (i.e., those who look to the text of the Constitution rather than the editorial pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post as their source for constitutional decisionmaking) are "extreme."

'Course, that's as far as the truth goes. Rather than discard their far Left, anti-constitutional ideology, the MoveOn types want to hide it. More dishonesty from the Loony Left.

2 comments:

Dvt guy said...

I wonder why GWBush ran as a "Compassionate Conservative" in 2000. Was that political calculation? Was he thinking the same thing (that the country couldn't stomach someone who openly admitted he was a conservative?)

James Young said...

Personally, I never liked that label. It was redundant. Of course, the far Left has done such a wonderful job of controlling the terms of the debate that it has promoted the notion that conservatives were not "compassionate." So yes, it was a political calculation. A political calculation designed to rebut the slanders of the Left