Social Security
�Weading� out the truth on USA Next�s anti-AARP ad
By Jerry Mazza
Online Journal Contributing Writer


Mar 11, 2005, 21:55

Just picture it. The ad USA Next displayed February 1 on its website, featured, in the left panel, a young, handsome soldier cradling his automatic rifle with a large red X drawn on him and, in the right panel, two gays in tuxedos, with flowers in their arms, kissing and a large green checkmark drawn on them. Across the bottom of the ad, the words: �The REAL AARP Agenda." Get it?

USA Next, the right-wing group behind the Swift Boat Veterans� trashing of John Kerry�s military record, wants people to believe that AARP is opposed to fighting men and in favor of gay marriage. Can you believe it? It bears the unmistakable stink of the Swift Boat skunks, and head skunk Karl Rovester�yes, the genuine nose-curling aroma of right-wing smut. Homo-erotic crapola mixed with anti-patriotism, like one more piece of Gannongate, that is, if there is a piece of it left.

But why pick on the American Association of Retired People? It�s made up of 35 million seniors, from age 50 up to those "Greatest Generation" grandfolks? I mean the AARP did back Bush�s bogus Medicare prescription drug plan, which disallowed Medicare from bargaining with Big Pharma on the prices of prescription drugs. But, big sin, AARP did not, I repeat, did not back the prodigal son�s Social Security privatization plan or even the disinformation campaign that there was a "Social Security Crisis." And Junior hates it when anybody, even bossom buddies (and I use the term advisedly), disagree with him. You gotta hold him tight on all the issues and tell him you love him.

USA Today confirmed the fact that, "AARP was dead set against Bush�s Social Security plan. . . . The nation�s largest seniors� lobby will oppose any proposal that takes tax money out of Social Security to create private investment accounts for today�s workers, the head of AARP, said Monday. . . . AARP has already unleashed an advertising campaign against Bush�s expected proposal. The comments by William Novelli appear to slam the door on overtures from GOP congressional leaders, who hope the senior�s group might support a compromise plan that includes private accounts. . . . Novelli . . . also disagrees with Bush�s assertion that Social Security faces a crisis. He said the president�s idea for private accounts carries huge costs and �is not necessary� to make the program�s finances sound over the long term.

"� . . . We can fix Social Security without dismantling it, which is what private accounts carved out of Social Security do.�"

Wow, I might even rejoin AARP after resigning my membership over AARP�s prescription drug blunder. Novelli�s remarks must have sent shivers through Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. "It�s going to require some bold action," Frist said.

Who knew how bold that action would be? Well, there it was on the USA Next website.  But was this approved by Frist, Rove, Sanctum Santorum, or the Bush himself? Was discrediting John Kerry�s military record approved, accusing him of being a traitor rather than the Vietnam hero he was? In both cases, there has been no rush from the right to apologize; in this last case to demand an apology from USA Next, to set the record straight that they did not condone this kind of disgusting disinformation. There was no flush of anger that these Swifties were dishonoring the Republican Party�s name. Perhaps it wasn�t possible to do that after three cooked elections.

In fact, almost two months before the ad posting we had Fox News Channel�s Bill O�Reilly comment on Talking Points, "I�m sure some of the 35 million members of AARP are as surprised as I am by the analysis that the AARP has drifted left in recent years."

Wow, were they drifting left when they backed Bush�s prescription drug windfall for Big Pharma, Bill, you sack of Unfair and Unmbalanced reporting?  Catch the full "Does the AARP Have A Progressive Agenda," aired Thursday December 9, 2004, at www.foxnews.com. And read all about more news lies in the making.

Then, too, we have the parallel story of Doug Wead, the former aide to Bush�s father, author of the fairytales The Raising of a President�the Mothers and Fathers of Our Nation�s Leaders and All the Presidents� Children. The second title was a sound alike but worlds away from All the President�s Men, the last time Bob Woodward told truth to power.  His partner, Carl Bernstein must have kept him honest.  But the real issue was Doug or Weady as Bush called him. It turned out Doug had secretly taped conversations with his good buddy, Junior, from his gubernatorial days in 1998 and 1999, and willingly or not, told some truth to power, at least to the power of the reading public.

The February 20 New York Times reported, "Mr. Wead said he recorded the conversations because he viewed Mr. Bush as a historic figure, but he said he knew that the president might regard his actions as a betrayal. As the author of a new book about presidential childhood, Mr. Wead could benefit from any publicity, but he said that was not a motive in disclosing the tapes." Right, the check is in the mail.  Wead also said that "as promised, the tapes have been turned over to the president�s counsel. My agent has been directed to assign all future royalties from the book, The Raising of the President, to the Red Cross. Probably because his career, if not Wead personally, may soon be in need of bandaging. Check the shores of the Potomac for his next appearance.

Notably among the taped vignettes and their commentaries are these, "Signs of Concern: Early on, though, Mr. Bush appeared most worried that Christian conservatives would object to his determination not to criticize gay people. �I think he wants me to attack homosexuals,� Mr. Bush said after meeting James Robison, a prominent evangelican minister in Texas.

"But Mr. Bush said he did not intend to change his position. He said he told Mr. Robison, �Look, James, I got to tell you two things right off the bat. One, I�m not going to kick gays, because I�m a sinner. How can I differentiate sin?�" (One supposes the sin he was talking about was his drug and alcohol abuse. Or was it more? Elmer Gantry rides again.)

"Later, he read aloud an aide�s report from a convention of the Christian Coalition, a conservative political group: �This crowd uses gays as the enemy. It�s hard to distinguished between fear of the homosexual political agenda and fear of homosexuality. . . . �

"As early as 1998, however, Mr. Bush had already identified one gay-rights issue where he found common ground with conservative Christians: same-sex marriage. �Gay marriage, I am against that. Special rights, I am against that,� Mr. Bush told Mr. Wead, five years before a Massachusetts court brought the issue to national attention."

So in true Bush split-brained style, on one side of the page, he doesn�t want to kick gays. But on the other side of the page, he�ll create a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. No conflict, whatsoever. The same kind of cold-blooded duplicity we see in the USA Next ad.

This as the Gannongate scandal spirals out to Junior, Poppy Bush, the U.S. Navy, members of Congress, the Federal Reserve, the Secret Service and the FBI. Check out the two brave, brilliant articles written by Wayne Madsen at Online Journal: Gannongate threatens to expose a huge GOP pedophile and male prostitution ring and GOP pedophilia and S&M trysts: A long history going back to Bush 41 and Reagan. These articles include trysts with Gannon and Bush Junior in an upstairs White House bedroom, plus the elder Bush and Reagan�s gang preying on children, and Naval officers preying on children of Navy personnel. The larger confirmation is what heartless vipers these people are, not to mention their not-too-Swift-Boat flunkies.

It would be best to remove them all as soon as possible. Certainly, the leaking of Valerie Plame�s cover from Bush to Gannon to the wrong people, as Sherman Skolnick points out. caused the loss of most of the 70 imbedded agents lives that worked for her. This is a treasonable offense. The others are clearly illegal abuses of power and office. At worst, these men were not only unfit to govern and hold high commands, but ought to be prisoners at Gitmo, stripped of their rights, in the hellish limbo of steel cages and the world�s judgment.