Published on BuzzFlash (http://www.buzzflash.com/articles)
The Sexual Security of America’s Youth Betrayed by the Republican Party: Rove’s in Charge Now
By BuzzFlash
Created 10/06/2006 - 9:30am
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
With a poll revealed by none other than FOX News showing that if Hastert stays on as House Speaker, the GOP could lose up to 50 seats in the House [1], [2] it was time for Karl Rove to come in and start organizing a classic divert, diffuse and delay strategy.
Hastert is staying on for the moment as GOP House Speaker for three reasons only. Internal Republican polling must show that the potential GOP losses in the House might be even greater if Hastert resigns – given that it would be an admission of culpability (as it should be), and given that anyone who might replace him would have skeletons in his closet that might come tumbling out just days before the election.
The third reason is – given the first two reasons – that the White House is backing Hastert’s cover-up of a GOP Internet sexual predator of house pages. And if Rove has made the decision that they have to gamble with Hastert staying on as House Speaker, then Hastert is going to stay on, unless the voters elect a Democratic Congress and the position of House Speaker then belongs to Nancy Pelosi.
What we are seeing now are classic Rovian media control strategies to start to diffuse the crisis and repackage it is a "proactive" GOP "investigation." The press is already falling for it.
First, Hastert claimed that he was taking "responsibility" while saying that he didn’t do anything wrong. In short, he hasn’t taken any responsibility whatsover; he just said that for television. This is exactly what Bush did after Katrina, and then appointed himself to investigate the gross negligence he was responsible for. Did you ever read a report from Bush about his "self-investigation?" Exactly, are you starting to see the Rovian touch?
Then Hastert announces that he is asking the so-called House "Ethics" Committee, which has been virtually dormant in the face of massive GOP corruption in Congress, to investigate the Foley scandal, which Hastert calls the "page scandal." This was like Bush saying that he would have the Plame leak investigated, even though Bush and Cheney were at the center of the leak.
Such a Rovian strategy works if it can kick the ball down the field (stall until after the election). It also makes it appear as if Hastert wants to get to the bottom of a scandal that he is central too. If he wanted that, he would just have to tell the truth.
In the Plame case, Rove had Bush say that the Justice Department was investigating, and, therefore, he couldn’t comment. Then the Justice Department sat on the case and did nothing until Ashcroft had to recuse himself from "controlling" the "investigation" for reasons that have not yet been disclosed.
Already, Republican congressional candidates across America have been given the message point to respond – when asked if Hastert should resign: "I want to wait until the outcome of the investigation to make a judgement."
Of course, no investigation will make any report before the election – if ever. And the FBI is moving as fast as mice on valium.
And if the House Ethics Committee does start leaking to the press prior to the election, you can be sure it will be with little tidbits such as that they have discovered that some unnamed Democratic congressmen might have engaged in the same behavior as Foley.
In short, they will use the phony "investigation" process to throw the press off of Hastert’s – and the Republican leadership’s – betrayal of young people for the purpose of maintaining power by diverting attention, tossing up "anonymously sourced" diversionary muddying up of unnamed Democratic Congressmen, and running out the clock.
This is classic Rove. They will make it seem that the GOP wants to find out the truth, when it is using a sham "process" to hide the truth.
It’s worked for Rove before over and over again, because the press loves to report on "process," since it takes the responsibility of actually investigating stories off their hands.
This time, it may not work with the voters, because the chickens have come home to roost for the GOP.
Come to power on the basis of the demagogic use of "moral values"; then you die by the revelation of immoral values.
Rove has just a few weeks to use "process" to somehow make the Democrats seem responsible for l’affaire Foley.
Will his Machiavellian dishonesty and cynical betrayal succeed once again?
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Source URL:
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/articles/alerts/125
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