Progressives have long wondered what it would take to get insider DC media -- people who are savvy, but dependent on access to power which is entirely Republican in Washington these days -- to call out Republican smear tactics.
Well, the coordinated deception this week about Dingell has gotten the highly influential "Note" -- the voice of ABC's Political Unit and a reliable bellwether of DC opinion -- to call out the craven tactics of Republicans desperately upset about their failure to win the gains they had sought within a Jewish community that is aware that the Democratic Party is deeply pro-Israel, that Israel is (or should be) a bipartisan issue, and that Democrats are superior to the GOP on every other issue of broad consensus within the Jewish community.
Please pay particular attention to the bolded sections [emphasis added] below:
As part of a coordinated GOP effort to demonize the ranking Democratic House members who stand to gain the chairman's gavel if the President's party loses 15 House seats in November, White House political director Sara Taylor went on the attack against Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) regarding Hezbollah on the opening day of the RNC's summer meeting in Minneapolis, MN.
"Just this week," Taylor said, "Democratic Representative John Dingell, who has his sights set on chairing the powerful Commerce Committee, says he doesn't 'takes sides for or against Hezbollah', a vicious group that Time magazine called 'one of the world's deadliest terrorist organizations' and who, like Al Qaeda, has brutally killed innocent Americans and US servicemen. Ladies and gentlemen, there are a lot of hard questions in public life today - but whether to take a side for or against Hezbollah is not one of them."
What Taylor left out of her remarks is that in the same television interview, Dingell said, "Now, I condemn Hezbollah as does everybody else, for the violence, but I think if we've got to talk to them and if we don't - if we don't get ourselves in a position where we can talk to both sides and bring both sides together, the killing and the blood letting is going to continue." LINK and LINK
"It's totally out of context," Dingell adviser Anita Dunn told ABC News. "They have no issues to use against Democrats. They are now at the point where they are taking interviews out of context and ignoring people's records."
Dunn Noted that Dingell recently co-signed a July 28 letter from Rep. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-CA), calling on the European Union to add Hezbollah to the EU terrorist organization list. Dunn also Noted that Dingell has a long record of supporting aid to Israel. [for more, please click here]
"He probably has more contacts with Arab Americans than most members of Congress," Dunn said of Dingell. "But that has never influenced his feelings about Israel or about what we need to do in the Middle East."
Dingell's Hezbollah comments were made to WDIV-TV's "Flashpoint" public affairs show. After a snippet of Dingell's comments were posted on Power Line, a popular conservative Web site, Rush Limbaugh derided Dingell as the congressman from "Dearbornistan." LINK
According to excerpts released by the RNC, Mehlman is expected to follow Taylor's lead in taking Dingell's comments about Hezbollah out of context when he speaks today.
Mehlman's prepared text reads: "As our allies fight this same war on other fronts, should we support them, or should we - as the longest-serving Democrat in the House and possible Committee Chairman John Dingell said -- 'not takes sides for or against Hezbollah.'"
The Republican party's coordinated assault on truth and Democrats is a disgrace, and these tactics (as in 2004) needs to be rejected even more firmly in 2006 than they were in 2004.
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