Posted 1:02 PM by Robert

More Republican Dirty Tricks

The Man Without Qualities has already deplored Bush-Cheney's obvious placement of one of their henchmen as a mole at the very top of the Kerry-Edwards campaign apparatus:

The Washington Post reports: ... [I]n 1984, Kerry proposed eliminating a series of weapons systems... Kerry told the Boston Globe last year that some of those proposals [of Kerry's] were "ill-advised, and I think some of them are stupid" How dare Senator Kerry impugn his own patriotism and challenge his own military record this way! ... Clearly this Bush henchman, Kerry, is trying to obscure matters with incomprehensible and inconsistent answers that make him look weak on national security... [N]ote how Senator Kerry slyly restricts himself to listing some of the defense systems he considers "ill-advised" - but he doesn't even try to list which of his own proposals to eliminate defense systems are "stupid." As Senator Kerry points out, such willful vagueness is the clear mark of the trained Bush henchman! ... The Bush campaign has clearly planted a mole at the very top of the Kerry organization! That's the game that they play - and it isn't pretty.

Now Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman is on the case with additional evidence - an "authenticated" memorandum, of course. Yes, it's a real noir story of corruption at the top and the willingness of some political operatives to claw their way up at any price:

Memo

To: John Kerry, Republican mole

From: Karl Rove, White House political adviser ....

[T]the Democrats ... naivete is almost touchingly childlike. You'd think they'd never heard of Richard Nixon or dirty tricks.

But in all seriousness, let's review some of the tactics we've implemented. They fall into the following categories:

Making Michael Dukakis look good. ... [Y]ou outdid him when you put on an anti-contamination suit to tour the space shuttle orbiter. You looked like one of those sausages that race around the field at the Milwaukee Brewers' home games....

Those windsurfing suits are almost as bad, so put them on any chance you get. ...

[Y]ou've cleverly "bungled" every opportunity to show your sports savvy. You went to Michigan and said, "There is nothing better than Buckeye football." When someone mentioned stock-car racing, you asked, "Who among us does not love NASCAR?" You said your favorite Red Sox player of all time was Eddie Yost, who never played for Boston. Maybe I'm overoptimistic, but that last one might even put Massachusetts in play this year.

Those remarks were scripted by our crack staff, of course, but they didn't equal your brilliant ad lib when you showed up in Green Bay and made a reference to the Packers' "Lambert Field"--when everyone this side of Paris know it's "Lambeau." ...

It was shrewd to equip you with a fabulously wealthy wife who speaks with a foreign accent, but Teresa has expanded the role far beyond my fondest hopes. ... [B]lack voters ... would rather eat dirt than vote Republican. But for a rich white lady to proclaim herself "African-American" might cause them to reconsider. ... I loved that remark about the hurricane victims in the Caribbean needing food and electricity more than clothing: "Let them go naked for a while, at least the kids." ...

Honestly, who could have imagined one U.S. senator could come up with a different position for every day of the week? At this point, I doubt God himself could figure out what you really think about Iraq.

Read the whole sordid thing. Raymond Chandler couldn't have invented anything more fetid. Makes you weap for the fate of the Republic that this kind of thing goes on.