Wednesday, February 23, 2005
Strength Isn't Power;
Strength Is Courage
As you're most likely aware, the Association for the Advancement of Retired Persons (AARP) received a great deal of flak as it rolled over on its membership and threw its sizeable support behind President Bush's first-term, gargantuan Medicare debacle.0 comments
But, as we know, things change...
These days, AARP has jumped on the other side of the Social Security issue, and has begun running ads opposing Bush's dismantling of SSI. Here is their current position.
Of course, this sent the "you're either with us, or against us" crowd in the administration into apoplexy.
You've probably already seen the incredibly stupid anti-AARP Internet ad run by the GOP front-group, USANext. This was meant to be the beginning of a multi-million dollar GOP campaign to smear AARP. However, you won't see it any longer since the blogs of the left were on it like wolves on red meat, and USANext pulled the ad and killed the campaign. For now.
Yes, they killed the effort—despite dragging out the carcass of ol' Art Linkletter to be its spokesdribbler. The saddest part of this is that everyone I've mentioned this to has responded in EXACTLY the same way: "I thought he was dead!" Maybe he is; maybe he's not. Only Karl Rove knows for sure.
Whether Art's dead or alive, we can only assume that they'll give Linkletter a new show for this, with the updated segment, "Bullies Say The Darnedest Things!"
OK, so Karl Rove's troops couldn't slip one by everybody on a slow-news holiday weekend, as they so love to do.
However, this story is not going away anytime soon. Just as the J. D. Guckert story isn't going away anytime soon (...and again, just who was Guckert's contact/mentor/lover/client within the WH, anyway?).
But the rapid response from the blogs of the left, working together, clearly shows that henceforth the viciousness of the right will be stood up to. Smears will not be allowed to slide into the American consciousness; they will be fought and debunked on the spot.
Here, Steve Soto outlines clearly what the left's ongoing response should be. This post includes a copy of the original USANext smear ad, in case you missed it.
The Left Coaster: Democrats Should Not Let USA Next Get Away With Smearing The AARP
In this era of playground politics, dealing with the class bully and his snickering cronies rings a bell with many of us. It's something most Americans have experienced at some point or other in our childhoods.
The principles stay the same. Today is no different than yesterday. Adulthood is no different than childhood. They're in the office. They're Little League coaches. They're in the government.
There has never been a bully born yet who would stop their behavior as long as they saw themselves as winning. Whatever that advantage meant to them. Like thousands of mini-Chamberlains, we've all taken a step backwards thinking that that would resolve the situation. Just give them that dopey step forward they want, and they'll stop. But that didn't work in Second Grade, and doesn't stop in politics. Simply put, for each step you cede to a bully, they'll then want two.
It's always been that way; it always will be. No great rocket science here.
As long as everyone else tries to reason with them, the bully is afforded the ability, the permission and the room to take another step or two, or twelve.
Until...
At some point or other, someone in the aggrieved group simply says "No."
To which, they are summarily pummeled. That often ends any resistance.
But if that someone gets back up, and again says, "No," you begin to see the unraveling of the power of the bully.
Whether in Miss Smith's Fourth Grade Class, or in Nazi Germany or in the White House, the bully holds only the power which the group cedes to him/her. On the day someone stands up against the bully, tightly holds the moral core and feels the ground solidify beneath their feet, the emotional grasp of the bully ends.
Be it ol' Chucky in the playground or our friends at the White House or at the RNC.
posted by Gotham 1:47 PM
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