Republican Public
Enemy #1 ?
The Writing on the Bathroom Wall
Dr. James Dobson --
Republican Public
Enemy #1 ? The Writing on the Bathroom Wall
WEDNESDAY, MAY 20th 1998 -- NEW YORK-- Despite the latest DC brouha, ha over the mythical Chinese Technology Transfer, which Republicans will try to bootstrap into the biggest scandal of the century, our friends at the GOP are in desperate trouble at home.
If things keep going they way they are, Republicans will again find themselves in the minority position -- thanks to Dan Burton, Bob Barr and other ultra-right-wing fanatics who are making the American voter very nervous that they may be living in the Fourth Reich rather than in the United States.
Watch for Newt Gingrich and his cohorts to ignore GOP pollster Frank Luntz who now warns them to "back off" on the White House until after the mid-term elections.
They won't.
And in plotting the downfall of Democrats, they will create the biggest firestorm of partisan foo-fighting the nation has seen in a long while.
At stake? Control of the government and the as-yet hopeful presidency of George W. Bush Jr., who won't have a chance in Hades should the battle to "get" Bill Clinton proceed.
The battle to unseat Clinton is lost. The sex scandal penumbra will infect even the Chinese connection hearings now planned by Newt and the Republicans, and will die under their own sword. That's the short story.
Bill Clinton did not transfer technology to the Chinese, putting the "world in danger of nuclear winter." The Chinese were doing this pretty well all by themselves. They already had the capability to launch missiles topped with nuclear warheads, thanks to most Presidents since Nixon and lions of American commerce eager to export our wares.
What Clinton did do was allows American satellite makers -- most notably Hughes and Loral -- to move satellites with semi-secret technology to China for launch. Of course, the technology was embedded in the satellite - not in the Chinese rockets. China, according to our sources, never got so much as a peek at it.
Next comes admitted felon Mr. Johnny Chung. Chung is now fighting for his life. He's making deals with prosecutors. If he can be believed -- which he cannot be -- the Chinese military, through a Chinese missile company, decided to send a few hundred thousand dollars to Bill Clinton with a note attached: "See you in Space!"
Balderdash!
Notwithstanding that the Chinese deny this story, it seems pretty ridiculous that the Chinese leadership would be huckstered into believing that the President of the United States would ship them the "key to Armageddon" in exchange for some campaign cash. Sure, the Chinese culture believes in relationships over logic, but what's more likely is that the President was convinced that the Pentagon -- not exactly a pillar of virtue -- was being a bit paranoid about this technology, and that Loral et al had come up with a way to protect it, safe enough to get OUR satellites launched on the cheap. What's more, the Pentagon itself uses the Chinese to launch own its satellites as well!
If any "crime" was committed, it was allowing a foreign nation to launch US satellites instead of giving the business to a young but growing American space-launch industry. But our space industry is not ready, and the Chinese were. They had already launched several satellites for myriad nations and the U.S. military -- so why not take advantage and get our communications satellites up there years earlier? If any criminal is lurking, it sure isn't Bill Clinton. We cannot imagine the POTUS sitting in the Oval Office trading secret military and civilian technology for a hundred thousand smackers (remember, Johnny-Boy Chung kept $200 thousand for himself). The President can raise that much at a weenie roast for five bank CEOs.
We can imagine a couple of American billionaire businessmen trying to buy favor from a hundred different sources however.
By the way, Bernard Schwartz also gave money to Republicans last cycle -- are they "in with the Chinese" as well?
In case you're not convinced of this latest idiotic charge, witness William Safire's hilarious column yesterday where he completely "forgets" that it was President George Bush (former CIA director, Ambassador to China, and Reagan Veep) who set up and generally financed the Chinese satellite venture by allowing the purchase of more than a thousand tail sections for Boeing 737s from the Chinese Army.
Then there was the GOP financier, Mr. Simon Fireman, who pleaded guilty to laundering money through Hong Kong for the Republican National Committee. Hong Kong is a communist territory, Mr. Safire! Then there was Haley Barbour who, while as Chairman of the Republican Party, sat on back of a yacht arranging megabucks for the GOP with a Chinese-tied businessman -- also in Hong Kong's Kowloon Harbour. And where's Safire's "insider" knowledge in ignoring the very fact that the Pentagon pays the Chinese to put satellites in orbit for the United States military? Hidden behind lies, we think.
We don't say that Fireman, Bush, Barbour and others were arranging quid pro quo deals for the Chinese.
We could.
But what we do say is that GOP fire on this issue will raise a flag so red that the American people are likely to throw most incumbents out of office -- especially the "Chicken Little" GOP who keeps foisting half-truths on voters in some sick effort to fool them into believing "the sky is falling."
We write on the China matter only because it is the issue -- the very complex issue -- on which the Republican Party will hang its final scandal-and-investigation hat on during these next few months. They will make a grave error in this, and the resulting losses in November will finally strip Newt Gingrich of his Speakership and once again deliver the House to Democrats - Just in time for the year 2000 presidential elections where George Sr., not Jr. may be the issue that once again denies the White House to Republicans. The Bush family already has a darkish past -- a Chinese connection will be just one more nail in the coffin.
Gingrich, a skilled fund-raiser but a lousy insider-tactician, has already set the stage of doom for his party. GOP house members came back from the Spring recess as manic depressives. They had spent weeks in their districts during Easter and found constituents angered over their do-nothing agenda and witch hunts, one after the other aimed at the Clintons. Pollster Frank Luntz had been right: most Americans have scandals in their own closets and feel personally beset by Congressional investigations examining the sex lives of public figures. They are frightened by New McCarthyism and will say so at the polls.
So what does Gingrich do? He attacks the President as immoral and starts up yet another investigation -- one sure to touch his own party as much as the White House or Democrats.
But the key story for Gingrich was in Nebraska last week where underdog Mike Johanns -- a GOP moderate with little money -- beat two challengers in the Republican primary for governor there. Johanns beat millionaire John Breslow, who spent $2 million of his own money to prove he was a bona-fide "conservative" in the Gingrich/Barr/Burton 'tradition,' and soon to be ex-Congressman Jon Christensen, the siren of this story. Christensen, who couldn't have a better name for the role, framed himself as "a family-values conservative Christian."
Nebraskans asked "Whose family values? Yours?" and then answered "We're not interested," sending Christensen packing with just about 28% of the vote. He'll be quite lucky to be re-elected to the House come November.
The Christian Right was finally exposed as an "Omaha pig in a poke" -- with no power to deliver much of anything save a minority viewpoint most often marked by hypocrisy.
Ralph Reed: take note.
Aside from proving that ultra-right Christians have very big mouths usually aimed at other's frailties, the Nebraska Republican gubernatorial primary showed that even in the center of America's heartland, Jesus-based propaganda spewed by office-seekers -- only for political advantage -- does not wash. People realized quickly that Christ himself would be embarrassed by politicians using the name of God to seek power. Christensen, a supposed "Christian", ran under the banner "I won't ever appoint a gay person to a position of leadership." According to the New York Times, Christensen divorced his wife in 1994 when he ran for and won a congressional seat. As part of the divorce settlement, this "Christian" got an affidavit from his ex-wife that she had been "unfaithful." Now he is engaged to former Miss America Tara Dawn Holland who, if you can believe this, announced she was a "Virgin" and had saved herself for marriage - presumably to Christensen.
Mr. Christensen also distributed fliers in the last days of the primary accusing Mayor Johanns of being "soft on pornography" after a cable company in Lincoln, Nebraska (where Johanns is Mayor) showed a little nudity. Christensen actually wept the night he lost the primary and said he was excited to "see what the Lord had in store for us." What He has in store for Christensen is defeat in November for running the sickest race thus far in 1998.
Johann's acceptance speech was a message to intolerant and sanctimonious Republicans: "We are going to do it. and I emphasize the 'we.' "
But the message Republicans had better remember is that America is fed up with personal attacks on politicians -- especially when it comes to their private lives, family relations and other issues best left alone.
And the Gingrich move to expose the President and the Democratic Party as prostitutes for the Red Chinese will not work for a variety of reasons, not the least being that the GOP has spent its credibility on so many other non-scandals that this one, more serious, will be perceived as just another head hunt by goofy self-righteous politicians who, by their very nature, are also pretty "questionable" in terms of most Americans' everyday experience. The links to past Republican presidents and their own kowtowing to the Chinese will also not go unrevealed.
Democrats will start with Nixon and proceed.
Had the GOP ceased its attacks on the Clintons' personal life, they may have had a slim chance to put the China scandal forward effectively. But, true to form, young and wet-behind-the-ears Republican newcomers -- including Gingrich -- again show their lack of intellect.
Americans no longer buy into politicians running for office to "change the world." They are savvy and understand that most men and women running for office are doing so for power -- plain and simple. Even resting on 2000 years of Christendom won't help the "family values" pol who leaves his family home while cavorting in the nation's capital.
The smartest thing for Republicans to do, and right now, is to disconnect violently with the Christian Right which hasn't delivered "jack" to them… ever. They should tell people like aqua-eyed Gary Bauer, Ralph Reed, Bill Bennett, and every other hypocrite hiding under the banner of evangelical "churches" that they've had enough.
This goes particularly for pseudo-shrink and part time bible-beater James Dobson and left hand psycho-pundit "Dr. Laura" who are making millions treating very sick people like so much trash to the amusement of millions of Americans who listen to their radio shows. Dobson, the worst of the two, heads some wacko organization called "Focus on the Family" which is a misnomer for "Focus on Giving Me, James Dobson, Money."
Dobson went to the Hill this month to threaten the GOP with abandonment.
Instead of telling him to grab his cassock and take a hike, idiot Republicans who don't seem to understand that it is their moderate members who hold them together are now bowing to Dobson. Dobson loathes George Bush Jr. for not backing private religious schools against public ones and Christie Whitman and Rudy Giuliani for being pro-choice. Dobson even turned on John McCain because McCain backs campaign finance reform and Dobson does not.
Hey Republicans! Wake up! Take back your party from extremists. If you fail, you'll be relegated to the back bench for at least 8 years.
Gee. What are we saying?
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