Project Roots on Republican Spinelessness

Project Roots on Republican Spinelessness

The principal argument which has been invoked
by the President's apologists for suppressing investigations — namely, that
we should blindly trust the President on national security matters and that
Congress has no business investigating the President's decisions concerning
the “war on terror”– is entirely obviated by the port controversy.
In response to demands for an NSA investigation, it will now ring intuitively
false for any Republican Senator to claim that Congress has no role to play,
or that the Administration should be trusted with no oversight, when it comes
to making decisions about how to defend the nation. Glenn
Greenwald

Jane's
Project Roots is taylor made for Glenn's NSA
expertise, but Portgate may be the catalyst that gets Glenn and all the state
activists heard. Portgate exposes the emotional nationalism that lies at the
heart of the furor, which is also where right-wing radio and the faithful callers
live and breathe.

Rush and Ken doll Sean, as well as the other Republican terrestrials,
are on the air to rev up the base, who take what these radio hosts say as the
gospel, religiously and politically. As I've said before, right-wing radio is
a local area audio hand shake and the
primary whispering campaign of the Republican Party.

I played out earlier what Portgate
would sound like if Bush was a Democratic president that had leased our ports
to a Dubai company, with Ken doll Sean in a hissy.

This is the party of the ACLU, who would rather be politically
correct than protect America. Remember also, that this is the man who sat
for 7 minutes when our country was under attack. That let the bin Laden family
get out of the U.S. on the days after 9/11. That let bin Laden get away in
Tora Bora. And after all we know about Dubai: two of the terrorists came from
there, they helped ship nuclear to our enemies, their banking system hid bin
Laden's money; this Democratic president wants to sell off our national security
to a country who thinks the Taliban is good.

Get my point? The right-wing radio stars are being disingenuous
at best. Their Republican booster on Portgate is likely to be John McCain. After
all, he's the symbol of all things contrary, right? That was before the straight
talk express ran out of gas.

Portgate is the entry way into the more complex issues. Because
if you listen to right-wing terrestrial radio, one thing is certain, they deal in sound bites,
easy answers, quick theories. Commercial breaks don't allow for long expansive
Al Franken or NPR type discussions. That's saved for host's political pontificating, where so much of the damage is done, mininformation and down right lies are planted.

Connecting the NSA illegal spying up with Portgate will give Glenn
and anyone else trying to drive home the dangers, not to mention the illegality
of domestic spying, a natural hook. The hook is accountability and what is being
done in secret. The Dubai deal was done behind closed doors, without Congress
even knowing. Now get this audience: so was the NSA illegal spying campaign
by Bush, with Congress still not knowing the full details. If Bush can sell
off our ports in private, what is he doing with the wiretapping of American
citizens without a warrant?

The beauty of Portgate is that it hits the people's emotions and nationalism. While you're in that tender spot, hit them with more damaging substance, which is the illegal wiretapping of American citizens.

But beware, if we separate Bush from the Republican Congress we're
going to actually give them a talking point for the 2006 midterms. So a gentle
reminder of their spineless go along with all things Bush attitude has got to be blasted.

The NSA wiretapping still doesn't register deep enough yet because
no one has proven that any innocent American was spied upon. It's hard for your
average right-wing radio listener, over 20 million, not counting the Christian
network, to get why we should **(not) sacrifice a little liberty to gain a little security,
because after all, we're fighting terrorists. But when Bush leases our ports
away to a state government who has ties to two of the 9/11 terrorists all bets are off, with the judgment and competence question surfacing with red flags flying. “Trust me” goes out the window.

Portgate is the gateway to explaining the NSA illegal spying.
Again, the NSA spying issue is very complicated to explain in right-wing radio time spaces, between commercial
breaks, especially since no host really wants to give the facts, surface suffices. What Bush and the Republicans have done on Portgate is not hard to understand. Every single American gets this one. Tying the
NSA issue into it is the moment of clarity for tying in the lack of accountability
of George W. Bush and the spineless acquiescence of the Republicans who control
Congress.

A moment like this in talk radio doesn't happen every day. Jane's
campaign, with the help of John
Amato, Glenn
Greenwald, the help of state activists and whatever I can do, could
make it a seminal shift in terrestrial radio. Get
involved.

**NOTE: A very kind reader notified me of the missing “not,” so I was able to amend the above post, which now makes the point I originally intended. What would I do without my readers? Thanks to “g.”