"DING-BAT" BACHMANN & MINORITY LEADER JOHN "BONER" EMBARRASS THE GOP….AGAIN
Gary Ater
November 13, 2009
...Representative Bachmann, is a real "piece-of-work"
As usual, the highly bizarre Republican "ding-bat" US Representative from Minnesota, Michelle Bachmann, got herself into trouble once again when she used her government computer and web site to promote a political "Rally". The get-together was for all the anti-health reform bill "crazies" to attend at the US Capitol Building on the Saturday before the House Health Reform Bill vote.
It is well understood today just how much of a House rule was actually broken. Years ago, the previous Chairman of the prestigious House Way & Means Committee, Dan Rostenkowski, was actually sent to prison for the improper use of officially purchased US Postage Stamps which were supposed to be for his Washington DC office mailings.
The GOP members originally tried to get away with calling the "Bachmann Rally" a "Press Conference", but no members of the press attended the get-together. By using her official web site to promote such a partisan event, plus involving a Washington lobbyist, Representative Bachmann broke the current rules against using a government provided computer system and web site for a wholly partisan political meeting. (Even the Bush White House had gotten into similar trouble for using the government computer and e-mail systems for doing partisan Republican Party business.)
What is also disturbing is that this so called "press conference", without any national or local press, was sponsored and attended by the House Republican Leadership. Senior GOP lawmakers were in attendance and they had no problem with the negative tone of the proceedings.
The proceedings featured the kind of things that we´ve unfortunately grown accustomed to, such as signs of President Obama being depicted as Hitler. But this time there was also a large new 1940´s picture-sign showing piles of bodies from the German Dachau concentration camp with the caption "National Socialist Healthcare". It was truly grotesque and disgusting.
Representative Eric Cantor, the second-ranking House Republican, only offered some mild criticism after the fact. Mr. Cantor said "The signs were inappropriate and the use of Hitler comparisons by such people as Rush Limbaugh conjures up images that frankly are not, I think, very helpful." Saying that signs showing a pile of naked dead bodies from the Holocaust and comparing dead Jews with the protesting of an American health care bill are only "inappropriate", goes way beyond the pale of being totally out-of-line and insensitive.
Then, when the Minority Leader, John Boehner spoke, he proceeded to once again embarrass himself when he stated that he had a copy of the US Constitution in his hand and that he was going to read its preamble. Apparently Mr. Boehner didn´t know the difference as he proceeded to read the preamble to the Declaration of Independence……?
And even though Mr. Boehner was less than 20 feet away from the large Holocaust sign, he now says that he never saw the sign. Anyone that watches the videos of the event can plainly see the sign next to Mr. Boehner. So I would therefore suggest that Mr. Boehner get his eyes checked as soon as possible. (And since he has the outstanding health care that all Federal employees have, the examination will probably be totally covered.)
But there were two additional events that made the whole proceedings very embarrassing for all those that produced, promoted, supported or attended the event.
First, even though the event was sponsored and promoted by the FOX Cable Channel, by Glenn Beck and Ms. Bachmann and Dick Armey´s national FreedomWorks lobbying organization, all they were able to round up for the Saturday protest was somewhere between 4,000-10,000 attendees.
If that wasn´t enough, when they were showing the video of the "Event" later on the Sean Hannity Show on FOX, to make the crowds look larger, FOX had spliced in some video of the larger gathering at the Washington Mall back last September. These older videos were made while the Summer´s larger 9/12 "Tea Party" meetings were going on.
Unfortunately for FOX, Jon Stewart´s team on The Daily Show caught the attempt at the deception. Stewart showed on his Daily Show, just how the trees in Hannity´s video, that had started with their current Autumn colors, changed back to their Summer green in the middle of Hannity´s video. Stewart then showed some of the video from the September 9/12 crowd that was identical to the video supposedly from the recent November Bachmann meeting.
The next day, Hannity owned up to the supposed "accidental" insertion of the older video and he apologized on his show after Jon Stewart´s revealing exposé.
But even today, there is still a big difference between the Hannity/Bachmann numbers (They say 45.000 attendees.) and the numbers put forth by the Washington Post which says at the most, maybe 10,000 attendees. And according to MSNBC, "Three Capitol Hill police officers all guessed that the crowd numbered at about 4,000 in attendance for Bachmann's protest event." And we know that the Police and Fire Department personnel are all trained for determining a crowd´s size for security and safety issues.
When will the Republicans ever understand and admit that "e-mails and video today are forever". The day of the "missing 18 minutes of tape" as it was with President Richard Nixon in 1973 are no more. Due to these two communication items alone, we are continuing to learn just how long and how much the GOP has been lying to the public. Now we can find and document the proof to nail them if we need it. (Yep, the proof from The Daily Show was posted on YouTube just minutes after the show.)
Unfortunately, the Republicans don´t seem to care about telling the truth and that can be a serious problem when trying to maintain a truly democratic nation.
Copyright: G.Ater 2009
Follow me on Twitter: gater01
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