QUID PRO QUO, or "Bush repays "Swift-Bums"

[Gimpy]

This is how the "slime-machine" behind the "Chicken-Hawk-In-Chief" repays their loyal partners in deception, lies and vicious misrepresentations and hope that the voting public will not see through their veil of underhanded untruths!

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Quid pro quo: How Bush pays Swift Boat Veterans for Truth and others

by Mike Pridmore
Mon Aug 16th, 2004

In last weeks LA Times, Ron Brownstein, in the process of discussing Bruce Springsteen's possible political influence, decried partisan politics and held up John McCain as the model of non-partisanship. Mr. Brownstein specifically mentioned the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth as the ugliest example of the problem.
But what Mr. Brownstein, and seemingly everyone else in the media, fails to see is that John Kerry is being targeted by the same people for the same reasons they targeted John McCain in 2000: quid pro quo .

The backers of the ad, like other supporters of Mr. Bush, want the political favors that flow from a Bush administration like water over Niagara Falls. And the pattern of quid pro quo probably dates even farther back than Mr. Bush's days as governor of TX to the days of his iconic predecessor Richard Nixon.

After serving as an attack dog against John Kerry in the waning years of the Nixon administration, recently resurfaced Kerry attacker John O'Neill was given a clerkship with Nixon's favorite justice, William H. Rehnquist. Perhaps it was not a quid pro quo, but it certainly looks suspicious.


But even if Republicans in Nixon's time were handing out quid pro quos such as the one suggested above, since then they have raised political favoritism to an art form. Friends and family of Merrie Spaeth, one of the principals of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, have been big beneficiaries of what certainly appears to be quid pro quo . Theodore Olson (godfather of Spaeth's daughter ), who was counsel to the right-wing American Spectator when it acted as a front for the dirty-tricks campaign against Clinton known as the Arkansas Project, is now the solicitor general in the Bush Justice Department.(link)


O'Neill was a law partner of Spaeth's husband at Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson , a Dallas firm. With an oil and litigation practice focused on the defense of major energy and industrial firms, the dozen partners in Clements, O'Neill, Pierce, Wilson & Fulkerson have clout that exceeds their firm's small size. Their corporate clients include Exxon Mobil, General Electric, Reliant Energy, Koch Industries and Eastman Kodak. (link)

An example of quid pro quo (in this case a position given for services rendered) from the same law firm is Margaret Wilson, the former general counsel to George W. Bush during his second term as Texas governor. (She succeeded Alberto Gonzales, who currently serves as White House counsel.) In 2001, Wilson went to Washington with the new president, who appointed her deputy general counsel in the Department of Commerce. During her tenure as Bush's counsel in Austin, she was implicated in the Service Corporation International funeral home scandal. State government whistle-blower Eliza May accused Wilson of participating in an effort to "intimidate" her from pursuing an investigation of SCI, a major Bush campaign donor. (link)


The web site of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth was put up courtesy of William Franke, a St. Louis businessman with longstanding ties to Attorney General John Ashcroft and the Missouri Republican Party. Its chief financiers, according to the group's last quarterly IRS filing, are Houston builder Bob J. Perry and the Crow family, both major Republican donors from Texas. The Crow family, a clan of megadevelopers based in Dallas, are close Bush friends as well as generous backers. Harlan Crow is also a trustee of the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation. (link) A recent example of quid pro quo involving Perry came last year when the TX legislature passed a law that seemed to favor builders like Mr. Perry to the detriment of homeowners. (link)

Other examples of quid pro quo (in this case favors shown for money given) can be found from the primary season in the year 2000, when John McCain was the victim of similar attacks. "Republicans for Clean Air" produced television ads falsely attacking the environmental record of Sen. McCain in California, New York and Ohio. Republicans for Clean Air was simply Sam Wyly -- a big Bush contributor and beneficiary of Bush administration decisions in Texas -- and his brother, Charles, another Bush "Pioneer" contributor. (One of the Wyly family's private capital funds, Maverick Capital of Dallas, had been awarded a state contract to invest $90 million for the University of Texas endowment.)

When the secret identity of Republicans for Clean Air became known, spokeswoman Spaeth caught the flak for the Wylys, an experience she recalled to me as "horrible" and "awful." Her job was to assure reporters that there had been no illegal coordination between the Bush campaign and the Wyly brothers in arranging the McCain-trashing message.

Not everyone believed her explanation, including the Arizona senator. (link)

But the quid pro quo system seen here so far is small potatoes compared to the expansive one developed since Mr. Bush went to Washington. His incestuous relationship with Big Oil, part of which is represented by O'Neill's law firm, shows a troubling pattern of administrative favoritism for campaign donations . (Donations details here) What they got for the donations is discussed here. Here you can see some details of quid pro quo for the prescription drug industry. There are similar quid pro quos for Enron and Halliburton. Enron quid pro quo goes back to Mr. Bush's days as Texas governor but continued after he got to Washington. The insurance industry paid over $67 million for the quid pro quo seen here.(link)

And that's not even the whole picture but enough of it to see why monied interests supported George Bush and opposed John McCain in 2000 and why some of the same monied interests oppose John Kerry now. This isn't really about partisanship. It's about quid pro quo involving power and money. John McCain sees that it is dishonest and dishonorable but he doesn't see the motives and how the quid pro quo works. And that's what we really need to be talking about.

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Slime purveyors and gutter trash is too kind of a description of these folks!

[Arrow]

Now, now, Steve remember your sage advice and astute wisdom so generously passed on to me in a previous post and listen to your mentor Bill W.

~To little sparrow from Gimpy ~

"I can also possibly offer some sage advice and astute wisdom that I've learned from my friend Bill W.---- I sincerely hope you are not offended by this offer as it is documented in his "Big Book":

"It is plain that a life which includes deep resentment leads only to futility and unhappiness. To the precise extent that we permit these, do we squander the hours that might have been worthwhile. Resentment is the "number one" offender. This business of resentment is infinitely grave. For when harboring such feelings we shut ourselves off from the sunlight of the Spirit."

"When a person who we believe offended us, we must say to ourselves....This must be a troubled man....How can I be helpful to him. God save me from being angry, from retaliation and arguement. If we do not try these things, we destroy our chance to eliminate resentment."

ta ta

[Gimpy]

Little Sis.

There's a BIG difference between "resentment" and total "disgust"!

[Arrow]

Steve,

FYI

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/thesaurus?book=Thesaurus&va=disgust&x=14&y=16

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?book=Dictionary&va=outrage&x=21&y=15

[colmurph]

The facts are, Gimpy, that your "Hero" John F#@%& Kerry is lying about his service in his less than 4 month tour. Just like he lied to Congress during the "Winter Soldier" talks. Gimp, anyone who disagrees with you gets the "Gimpy verbal blowtorch". You hate Bush so much that you are no longer able to discern truth. Your boy isn't going to get much support from veterans who are not blinded by their hatred. In December I expect you'll be ranting that GWB "Stole the Election" again. Get a life Gimpy!

[Gimpy]

Originally posted by colmurph The facts are, Gimpy, that your "Hero" John F#@%& Kerry is lying about his service in his less than 4 month tour. Just like he lied to Congress during the "Winter Soldier" talks. Gimp, anyone who disagrees with you gets the "Gimpy verbal blowtorch". You hate Bush so much that you are no longer able to discern truth. Your boy isn't going to get much support from veterans who are not blinded by their hatred. In December I expect you'll be ranting that GWB "Stole the Election" again. Get a life Gimpy!

You oughta really know about being "blinded by hatred" there Col. Smurph! :cd:

After some of the tirades and hate filled comments YOU'VE been so quick to put up around here!

Stick around...........you ain't seen NOTHIN yet if you think my my "verbal blowtorch" hasn't been hot enough to "scorch" your ass yet!..............I got PLENTY of "FUEL" left!

[SuperScout]

Alas, I had once believed that our resident ultra liberal would rise above petty name-calling, a childish and loathsome practice, but sadly it continues. But just to show how out of touch with reality he is, and all the more deserving of our pity, if not disdain and contempt, harken forthwith:

No one is ever "given" a clerkship for a US Supreme Court Justice. These are awarded after a highly competitive process, and while highly coveted, are not part of political patronage. That process might work in the State of Hersey Packing, er... New Jersey, which has been controlled and corrupted by the Democrats for decades, but it doesn't work at the Federal level. While this awarding of a clerkship may appear suspicious to some, particularly those wallowing in delusional paranoia, it is in fact the normal course of action in the real world, where competence, integrity, and scholarship are rewarded.

Ted Olson is no longer the Solicitor General of the United States, having resigned several weeks ago. But then considering the poster of this original dysfunctional statement has seldom if ever, been indicted with having had an original thought, and resorts to laborious and pedantic 'cut-and-paste' drivel, dear readers shouldn't be too surprised to find such outdated rantings.

And golly gee, the President appointed a competent, female attorney, Margaret Wilson, to a position in the Department of Commerce? Why, had this been the former President, he probably would have groped and fondled her first. Notice how Gimpy tries to impugn her character and reputation by hi-lighting in red, his favorite color, that she was 'implicated in the Service Corporation International funeral home scandal.' Not indicted, like his boy Slick Willie, not convicted, like the former governor of Arkansas, (gasp! another Democrat!), but merely "implicated."

[Gimpy]

I'll tell YOU the same thing I told your compadre, Col. Smurph!

You're one to be talkin about "name-calling", ya know?

Ye who must hold the all-time RECORD for "name-calling"...."insults"......"character attacks", etc., has absolutely NO ROOM to accuse others of this behavior!

You last post just reinforces and confirms those facts!

Keep up the good work...............you're making us all aware just how despicable, contemptous, pitiable, and deserving of scorn your kind REALLy are!

[SuperScout]

I notice that you didn't/couldn't refute what I posted, so in classic ultra liberal fashion, you attack the messenger. No surprise here!!

[Gimpy]

Of "Right-Wing" fanaticism!

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Racists Behind The Swift Boat Book?


Submitted by Oliver Willis on Mon, 08/16/2004 - 1:51am .


So, we know that the co-author of the Swift Boat book (and not "just" an editor) has a documented online history of spewing disgusting, hateful rhetoric. Corsi's claims that most of his stuff was all in jest just don't add up, unless people are prone to be bigots -- for laughs.

A book of this much notoriety would seem to have no problem attracting a top-shelf publisher, it would seem to be a slam dunk for a publisher like Knopf, W.W. Norton or even the Murdoch-owned HarperCollins to add to their stable.

But Unfit for Command happens to be a production of Regnery Publishing - who describes itself as "the leading conservative publisher in America".

Regnery has a history of smearing Democrats, from Ann Coulter's debunked screeds against President Clinton to Gary Aldrich's fictitious account of White House debauchery to Speaker Dennis Hastert's new book, Regnery has never seen an anti-left hit piece it didn't like publishing, no matter how dubious the sources are.

So is it a coincidence that Corsi's hate speech, O'Neil's smears of Kerry's service, and Regnery's agenda of anti-liberalism all happened upon each other?

Attack speech loves company, but there may be more to this than meets the eye. Consider this information about the family behind Regenery, uncovered by the Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hatewatch" site (the SPLC is famous for Morris Dee's legal fights against the KKK, and ongoing monitoring of hate groups)

"Reclusive publishing heir to start all-white dating service
William Regnery II, an heir to the Regnery publishing fortune who's a prime mover and shaker in white nationalism publishing, is moving into a new line of business: match-making for "heterosexual whites of Christian cultural heritage."

In an appeal to potential investors titled "Population is Destiny," the famously reclusive Regnery wrote this March that the Caucasian dating service would be no ordinary money-making opportunity, but a chance to ensure "the survival of our race," which "depends upon our people marrying, reproducing and parenting."

Regnery, who says he's long been concerned with a "tendency to bachelorhood" among white men, told the potential investors that his latest effort to save the white race would not stop with match-making.

The dating service, he says, will be only the "first arrow in a business quiver" providing "services and products to whites."
Promoting white nationalism is nothing new for Regnery ? or his family. His grandfather, William I, signed incorporation papers for the America First Committee, an organization that opposed fighting Nazi Germany in World War II. His father, Henry, created Regnery Publishing, one of the major purveyors of books by right-wing attack dogs like Anne Coulter and G. Gordon Liddy.
William II has made his mark as a major fundraiser in radical right circles as the founder of the Charles Martel Society in 2001. The society publishes The Occidental Quarterly, an academic-looking journal filled with articles by white-supremacist luminaries such as Sam Francis, editor for the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens and Wayne Lutton of the hate group The Social Contract Press.

The society is putting together conferences, summer schools and a speaker's bureau ? all designed to push Regnery's view that the white race is veering toward extinction.

So now it looks like Jerome Corsi should feel quite at home with the gang at Regnery. But you wonder, should the Speaker of the House for the United States Congress really be doing business with what appears to be an organization of/friendly with white supremacists?

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Makes one kinda sick to the stomach, huh? :cd: