Did McCranky lie last night? But of course! Hey, it's what Young Johnny does -- and he knows it

by Ken

As I've made clear, I didn't watch the debate. As I also expected, I've also been unable to avoid the "highlights."

And I realized that one major reason I can't watch a McCranky "debate" is the fondness for what Keith Olbermann the other night referred to as his "phony umbrage," the manufactured hysteria he goes into when he has no substantive issue and instead pretends that his deep-rooted personal honor has been outraged -- as if the useless sack of poop still has any vestige of honor.

He does it whenever he lies about Senator Obama's foreign policy or tax plans, for example, or when he pretends that he has tried to be some kind of "reformer" on financial issues. And as I watched those clips, I thought of the point I made in my post last night about the film Boogie Man: The Lee Atwater Story:

Now it wasn't news to me that politicians lie. What was news is that everybody involved on the inside of the electoral game understands that people lie all the time. It's so normal that it's taken for granted. Only we poor schlubs on the receiving end of the TV feed aren't in on the game.

Last night, for example, there was that moment of bad dinner theater when the Crankyman went into a whopper frenzy special even for him, blithering about ACORN attempting to perpetrate the greatest threat to democracy in history.

The simple, undisputed fact is that not one single "fraudulent" vote can or will be cast as a result of ACORN's voter-registration efforts. Even a second's actual thought -- which is to say a second more than Senator McCranky has devoted to any issue in this campaign -- will tell you that if "Mickey Mouse" or "Tony Romo" fills out a fake registration card, in order to pad the registration gatherer's daily output and thereby increase his/her meager pay, there is absolutely zero chance that "Mickey Mouse" or "Tony Romo" is going to show up at the polling place attempting to vote.

THE ACORN RED HERRING

ACORN in fact has taken the lead in identifying of problematic registration cards it gathers. By law it has to submit all registration cards gathered; it isn't allowed to make judgments of validity, which the law apparently prefers to leave to duly authorized election officials. And there are documented cases, as in Nevada, of officials simply discarding the cover sheets in which ACORN officials called attention to problems.

Ironically, in fact, ACORN is being punished for its own vigilance. The organization itself has a practice of calling attention to problem registrations in its cover submissions. The reality is that the level of problem registrations is on the low side for paid signature-gathering -- lower, say, than is customary with Republican petitions to get their patented democracy-diminishing propositions on the ballot in California.

The truth is that ACORN is doing extraordinarily important work, attempting to register eligible voters whom guardians of the rich like the Crankyman would rather not see vote -- notably poor ones, and especially racially "different" ones. Let the states or the federal government undertake the job of registering all eligible voters, and ACORN can devote its energies to other matters.

Now this is important, so let me say it again: Not one single "fraudulent" vote can or will be cast as a result of the defective ACORN registrations. Registration fraud is a totally separate issue from vote fraud, and the kind of registration fraud we're talking about here, which has to do only with padding the rolls, simply cannot translate to vote fraud, because there is never any intent to have the bogus registrants vote.

The entire issue is designed (a) to manufacture a conversation diversion and, perhaps more important, (b) to cover the all-too-real and all-too-massive programs of vote suppression and stealing in which the Republicans have engaged in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections. Apparently we can look forward to even worse actual election-rigging to even more of the same this time around, and will have to hope that the higher level of awareness will provide some protection.

The only reason I've gone into this matter is to bring my Lee Atwater lesson into the discussion,

Of course McCranky knew he was lying. Of course McCranky knew he was lying. Of course McCranky knew he was lying.

He wasn't misspeaking or misguided. He was, as I put it in my head to last night's post. lying his fool head off. And he did it, does it, because, as I suggested last night, he thinks voters are morons.

You see how long it takes to set out even this very simple version of the reality of ACORN's voter-registration work. The lie is much simpler than the truth and, alas, is thought by the liar to be readily received by his/her target voter.

Just make no mistake. Consider the new whopper in Young Johnny's repertory, his claim that he has repeatedly rebuked McCranky-crowd members who say inappropriate things. In fact, as far as anyone knows, he has done this exactly once, clearly in response to weeks of rising demands that he ferchrissakes do something about the rising tide of violent rhetoric among his audiences -- a direct result, of course, of the mood of hatred he and his running mate the Danger Moose have been fomenting.

Once. And that was only in response to rising levels of national outrage. I don't believe for a second that Young Johnny really believes otherwise. He just thinks there's no price to be paid for lying. Is he right?


CONFIDENTIAL TO WINGNUT LURKERS AND TROLLS

You do realize that Young Johnny thinks you're dumber than doody, don't you? Of course, it probably doesn't bother you, since you're used to being led by the nose by frauds and phonies and outright crackpots who, for their own personal reasons, lie to you and then feed the delusions they've planted, on the assumption that you're so stupid, you'll never catch on.

You're led by people who either are nuts themselves (and really aren't in touch with reality) or else hold you in utter contempt, ridicule, and loathing, and consider you perfect tools for achieving their nefarious goals.

You do know that, don't you?


WHAT DID YOU THINK ABOUT THE DEBATE?
(NOTE: YOU'LL FIND HOWIE'S TAKE IN THE COMMENTS)

As you may have gathered, Howie is traveling today, and so isn't positioned to offer his perspective on the debate. [Oops, not so! Check it out in the comments section. -- K] Feel free to share yours in the comments.


SPEAKING OF THE DEBATE, ARIANNA HUFFINGTON'S
GOT A GREAT POST UP:

"McCain's Losing Strategy: Double Down on the Anger"

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