Larry Johnson, Sen. Clinton, and Gutter Politics
What do you get when you put a former CIA operative and the trailing candidate for the Democratic nomination together?
A steaming, rolling pile of shit. I debated about whether to even write about this, but I think it’s important to talk about the bigger implications of the politics of personal destruction that sleazeball Johnson is now floating to the top of the bowl.
Let’s go back for a minute and think about who Larry Johnson is, what he represents, and why he isn’t believable.
- His history of failures in the intelligence arena is chronicled here. This is a guy who didn’t get Osama bin Laden right, yet loves to proclaim himself the king of the political smear.
- Johnson claims to be a Clinton supporter. If that’s really true — and I somehow don’t think it’s REALLY true, just sort of in-name-only-true in a disruptive, smarmy kind of way — then it is the goal of Hillary Clinton to forever fracture and destroy the Democratic party.
- Larry Johnson has been credited with the ‘madrassa’ smear back in the early days of the campaign. 1 Of course, Johnson denies this vehemently, but one would expect him to deny it. After all, CIA operatives are not well-known for stepping up, raising their right hands and admitting all truth with no hope of ‘plausible deniability’. Think back to the Iran/Contra days for shining examples of CIA “honesty”. I’m willing to take a preponderance of the evidence: Clinton operative + CIA clandestine officer + abject hatred of Barack Obama + blogger = opportunity and motive for perpetuating lies on the Internet. Credit where credit is due here. What I’m willing to suspend is the conclusion that Hillary Clinton herself supports such activity
Okay, with the background out of the way, let’s get to the current round of rumors. According to voila over at Daily Kos, Johnson is having an orgasm over a secret Republican video of Michelle Obama railing against “whitey” in church. And sure enough, if you’re willing to roll up your electronic cuffs, take off your shoes and wade through a lying sack of shit, you can see it for yourself over on Johnson’s blog, where he’s also got the video of the Tennessee GOP Michelle Obama smear commercial. My, my, what a thing for a loyal Democrat to have playing on their site!
This style of politics is exactly what Barack Obama’s campaign is turning against. The power churners of the past don’t like that very much. They especially resent the possibility that the new kids might open the doors and let light into the dark corners of our very ugly backroom dealings over these many years.
These are the days of doctored video, faux journalism, and shrill end games. Don’t be fooled. If this were something worth considering, it would have been released in time for the three special elections handily won by Democrats. The GOP would have pulled whatever they could out of their asses in an effort to retain their death grip on the southern states, and that tape would have been all over the airwaves.
What Johnson is selling is snake oil, wrapped in a generous helping of bullshit. Don’t buy it.
1 McClatchy, 5/8/2008
“One practitioner in Virginia, who hates Obama like a dog hates cats, led a reporter through his efforts. Because the man is a retired clandestine CIA officer, identifying him could endanger officers or operations that remain classified, so McClatchy will not reveal his name”
Technorati Tags: Larry Johnson, Michelle Obama, smear politics, Hillary Clinton, death gasps
Thanks to Hugh McLeod at gapingvoid.com for the cartoon