Sunday, April 6, 2008

A Logical Conclusion

The fallout from last Tuesday's election, in which WMC was able to oust Justice Louis Butler and but in their bobble-headed puppet Gableman, continues. But there is an interesting pattern of thought among the right wingers.

Each and every one of the squawkers, from McBride to McIlheran to Sykes to Belling have all been crowing about Gableman's victory. (OK, Sykes doesn't actually write anything on his own. But he did put up several posts linking to other people writing the same point, over and over and over.)

Also, using eerily similar language, they all try to convince us that Gableman's winning the election had nothing to do with the huge amount of money spent by special interests, or Gableman's racist ad playing on the fear of people. No, my friends, they try to tell us that the only reason Gableman won is because Gableman was the conservative choice. For the sake of this discussion, let's use this as the first given: Gableman won because he is conservative.

Now, let us look at the allegations by the left. They claim Gableman's ad was racist and lacking in truth and integrity. James Rowen points out, in a post that criticizes McIlheran's incomplete essay on the matter, that no less than 30 state judges and one former Supreme Court justice found the ad had "exceeded the boundaries of fairness, honesty and integrity for candidates running for judicial office."

Clyde Winter again does his usual exemplary job of research and writing to show us a history of the whole scandalous election. He also provides us a couple of links to FactCheck.Org which tells us that the ads from CFAF were full of untruths, half-truths and unethical claims. FactCheck.Org also points out that the ad that came from Gableman himself is in the style of the Willie Horton ads, and that it would be generous to call it misleading (especially when it was blatantly fraudulent). Heck, even Sykes said that Gableman's ad was an embarrassment.

And let us not forget how our favorite barrister, in great pains-taking detail, itemized the incorrect allegations and assumptions of the likes of McBride, who couldn't even get the basic facts correct on which she launched her vitriolic eruptions of lies and hate. That's not the first, nor was it even the latest, time that she has gotten her facts completely wrong. But what do you expect. It takes a professional journalist to even know that they should start out with the complete and actual facts of the case. It is unfair to expect that level of journalism from McBride. (And to think, she is on the public dole for supposedly teaching journalism. Talk about wasting tax dollars...)

So, we see that, based on findings from lawyers, judges (including a former Supreme Court justice, and a fact checking organizations, the ads were racist, filled with lies, dishonest, unscrupulous and fear-mongering. Let that be our second given.

Following logic, given that Gableman won because he ran as the conservative, and given that the ads supporting Gableman were racist, misleading, dishonest, and unethical, one must presume, by their own admission, that these "conservatives" are racist, dishonest and unethical.

But we already knew that, didn't we?

5 comments:

  1. Tag: http://www.fromwhereisit.org/?p=2431.

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  2. Thanks, capper.

    I appreciate this column that contrasts comments from "the left" with comments from "the right", because it does get around to giving a nod to a few commentators from "the left".

    It is understandable that people on "the right" give lots of publicity and name recognition (and therefore life-giving credibility and attention) to right-wing commentators. But it is a supreme irony (as well as a generalization, to be sure) that people on "the left" also focus their attention and name recognition on right-wing commentators.

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  3. Capper, so Diane Sykes beating Louis Butler was rascist? And Patrick Crooks defeating Ann Walsh Bradley was rascist? And Ziegler beating Clifford was rascist? Considering the margin of most of these victories, and the fact that race could not have had anything to do with two of four, and the fact that outside interests lavishly spent in favor of both sides in all four races, there has to be something else at work here.

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  4. I'm not talking about the other races. Only the Gableman/Butler one.

    There's is more than enough people around the state from all walks of life that feel that Gableman's ads went too far. These includes judges and a former SCOWI justice and DAs that even switched sides because of the tone of the Gableman campaign.

    I haven't seen the final tallies on monies spent for each side (mind you, I did not say BY each side).

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  5. I think that ad was off base, but less because of the picture and more because it distorted Butler's role in representing the guy. And I do not think you can look at the race in a vacuum. There is a trend. Frankly, I think Gableman would have won by a bigger margin if he had run a better campaign.

    The result of the race was predictable. Hint for the future: do not appoint a guy who was recently roundly rejected by the voters. They might have had a reason the first time around.

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