SOMETIMES I WONDER HOW THE NY TIMES DECIDES HOW TO LABEL SOMEONE A MODERATE

Did the Times mean him?

The headline in this morning's Times is clear: G.O.P. Moderates Warn Bush Iraq Must Show Gains. The meaning of "G.O.P. Moderates" is decidedly less so. In fact, it's a loaded propaganda tool, that the Times employs regularly.

In the very first line of the online version of the story, the Times goes out of the way to offer a superfluous, wholly gratuitous definition of Republicans, purposely leaving it to the imagination of the readers what they mean by "moderate." I imagine a Republican moderate doesn't dress up in white sheets and pillowcases like Tom Tancredo, Trent Lott and Marilyn Musgrave. I imagine Republican moderates don't read chapters of Ann Coulter books before going to bed at night. The article by Carl Hulse and Jeff Zeleny, however, doesn't offer any real clues.

A gaggle of Republicans-- nearly a dozen-- scared that electoral doom has them on a list, perhaps a long list, wandered over to the White House today and told the head of their disreputable party, certainly someone who no one would confuse with a moderate, "that conditions [in Iraq] needed to improve markedly by fall or more Republicans would desert him on the war. The White House session demonstrated the grave unease many Republicans are feeling about the war, even as they continue to stand with the president against Democratic efforts to force a withdrawal of forces through a spending measure that has been a flash point for weeks."


Is standing with the unmoderate Bush and his extremist and failed policies part of being a Republican moderate? "Participants in the Tuesday meeting between Mr. Bush, senior administration officials and 11 members of a moderate bloc of House Republicans said the lawmakers were unusually candid with the president, telling him that public support for the war was crumbling in their swing districts." 11 members of a moderate bloc? That bears some looking into.

A perfect voting record at Progressive Punch yields a 100. Right now there are exactly two Democrats with perfect scores, Yvette Clarke of Brooklyn and Hank Johnson of DeKalb County, Georgia, although Keith Ellison (MN), Mazie Hirono (HI) and Steve Cohen (TN) are close enough to be considered perfect. All the way down at the very bottom of the congressional barrel are some mirror images-- Republicans with perfect scores, perfectly horrible, right-winders so extreme that compared with them almost anyone would be a moderate. Many people have wondered if Tim Walberg (R-MI) escaped from a mental institution. Who knows? But he and David Davis (R-TN) each has a zero score next to his name. They have voted against everything: increased minimum wages, lowering the cost of student loans, clean air, safe water, peace, mom, apple pie... And nearly as crazy are 4 other kooks with less than a 1 score (less than 1 out of 100!)-- Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Doug Lamborn (R-CO) and Mary Fallin (R-OK). For those keeping track, others who have fallen over the edge of the lunatic fringe are Adrian Smith (R-NE), Michele Secret Puker Bachmann (R-MN), Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Patrick McNutcase (R-NC).

Scorewise, if we look where Democrats meet, we find only one Democrat below 50, Gene Taylor (D-MS), who votes with Republicans most of the time on substantive matters. There is only one Republican above a 30, Chris Shays (R-CT). Even the next dozen most radical-right, reactionary Democrats-- like Bud Cramer (AL), Dan Boren (OK), Collin Peterson (MN), Ike Skelton (MO), Mike McIntyre (NC), Allen Boyd (FL), John Tanner (TN), Jim Marshall (GA), Jim Matheson (UT), Lincoln Davis (TN), Charlie Melancon (LA), and Tim Holden (PA) have voting records that are far far far from "moderate." Yet their scores are as much as 4 times more progressive than the least reactionary next dozen Republicans: Rodney Alexander (LA, a former Democrat), Ron Paul (TX, a Libertarian), Chris Smith (NJ), Michael Castle (DE), Jim Ramstad (MN), Wayne Gilchrest (MD), Frank Biondo (NJ), Timothy Johnson (IL), Vernon Ehlers (MI), Jim Gerlach (PA), Charlie Dent (PA) and Fred Upton (MI).

I've been looking at Dent's voting record lately because a progressive woman named Siobhan "Sam" Bennett is about to start a campaign to replace him in Congress, pointing out correctly, that he has been an unswerving rubber stamp for Bush's every catastrophic policy and the whole hideous agenda. Please take a look at this abysmal voting record and tell me on what planet would Charlie Dent be considered a moderate. And not once did he ever not support the BushCheney line on Iraq. Of the 16 roll calls on Iraq since he took office, he voted for the Bush Regime position exactly 16 times. Perfect score. And this is a moderate? And Jim Gerlach has a virtually identical voting record, as do Michiganders Vernon Ehlers and Fred Upton. I'm not sure why Hulse and Zeleny would label these radical extremists "moderate."

Dent was one of the Repugs at the meeting. Others were even further to the right, like Illinois nutcase Ray LaHood. If Ray LaHood is a moderate, the average American is a Maoist. LaHood, who has been a big time Bush enabler in Iraq, painted a picture for the naive Hulse of himself as a Hero Of The People: "It was a no-holds-barred meeting... It was a tough meeting in terms of people being as frank as they possibly could about their districts and their feelings about where the American people are on the war." "Moderate" Ray LaHood has voted on 49 roll calls involved Iraq, You want to guess how many times he took a moderate position? Exactly zero times. He could just as well have given Cheney his proxy and gone to sit in a tanning booth with John Boehner (who, incredibly, was also at the meeting).


Dent, who was one of the ringleaders of this publicity stunt for the suckers back home said the discussion with Bush was "very frank conversation about the situation in Iraq" but that all these "moderates" would "maintain solidarity with Mr. Bush for now by opposing the latest Democratic proposal for two-stage financing of war," which the House votes on today, legislation most progressives see as not even moderate, just more caving in to the reactionaries. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) said the bill was so pro-war and so devoid of taking any kind of a stance against Bush's escalating and catastrophic involvement in Iraq that he felt he couldn't vote for it.

Bush sat mute at the "conference" and didn't say one word. Condi and Rove were there too, presumably whipping the Repugs into shape. Among the other radical right war-mongers the Times has mislabeled "moderates," who attended were Mark Kirk (R-IL), Jim Gerlach (R-PA), and James Walsh (R-NY). What these kooks all have in common is not moderation but extreme vulnerability to losing their jobs next year when their constituents are asked to look at their voting records and asked to decide if they should be allowed another 2 years of ruining the country.


LET ME TAKE A STAB AT WHAT FOLKS LIKE THE NYT
MEAN NOW BY A "MODERATE" REPUBLICAN

I think what they have in mind is a party member who can point--or, if it's beyond his/her mental capacity, have SOMEONE ELSE point on his/her behalf--to someone in the party who is MORE extreme.--Ken