Rove advisor falsely smears ‘Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton cult’

May 29, 2007

National Review’s Michael Ledeen, who is also an AEI scholar and advisor to Karl Rove, became completely detached from reality today, blasting the “Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton cult,” which Ledeen accused of trying to “disrupt military funerals” across the country. (via ThinkProgress)

Even by the National Review’s standards, this is utterly ridiculous. The only coordinated effort to “disrupt military funerals” comes from the much-reviled Westboro Baptist Church, which may be a cult, but is in no way liberal. The “church,” which appears to be little more than one large, twisted family, is led by Fred Phelps, who pickets military funerals with messages such as “Thank God For AIDS” and “God Hates Fags.” (Phelps and his followers disrupt military funerals because they believe U.S. casualties in Iraq are God’s retribution for the U.S. tolerating gay people.)

In other words, the only cult that travels the nation engaging in this disgusting behavior is on the right, not the left. This reality is apparently inconceivable to Ledeen, who felt justified in smearing four completely unrelated war critics. Indeed, “Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton”? Other than opposing Bush’s policy, these four are hardly identical. For that matter, the only military funeral Sheehan attended was her own son’s.

What’s striking is that Ledeen considers himself a respected professional. Does he believe casually smearing war critics with a bogus attack is acceptable? Did he just assume war protestors were necessarily liberal, so he didn’t feel like he needed to check?

For that matter, is he so detached from the Iraq debate that he doesn’t realize who’s actually responsible for these disgusting protests?

The good news is Ledeen ran a correction. The bad news is it was wrong, too.

Less than 10 minutes after he smeared the “Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton cult,” Ledeen wrote:

Correction: I was mistaken about the cultists at military funerals. The demonstrators were from a disgusting anti-gay church. The anti-war cultists staged their own mock funerals, led by Sheehan’s followers at Code Pink.

Nico explained that this is wrong, too.

This is more intellectual dishonesty. Phelps’ hateful demonstrations have nothing in common with Code Pink’s processions, which feature “mothers grieving the sons and daughters lost to war.”

And don’t forget, Leeden, when he’s not smearing liberals for no reason, is a serious player in the Bush world.

One is Michael Ledeen of the American Enterprise Institute, whose specialties include terrorism and the Middle East. His latest book, according to the official summary, asserts that “America must topple the regimes of the terror masters to eliminate the threat of terrorism.”

The two met after Bush’s election. “He said, ‘Anytime you have a good idea, tell me,’ ” Ledeen said. Every month or six weeks, Ledeen will offer Rove “something you should be thinking about.” More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric.

If only he knew what he was talking about….

there is, iirc, strong reason to believe that ledeen had something to do with the forged documents on the supposed sale of yellowcake to iraq by niger, his daughter was one of the politically connected types sent to baghdad by the bush administration in lieu of people who knew what they were doing, and (again iirc) ledeen recently assured us all that khomenei was dead.

in short, the man is stone cold delusional; the notion that he has “specialties” other than propaganda is typical of how the AEI operates.

  • The AEI has no “scholars”, only bought and paid for lunatics who are set on world domination…each one seeing himself as a Napoleon Bonaparte deciding the good of the world is whatever they deem it to be. Just mention AEI and a rational person just shakes their head as these guys get everything wrong and they have no memory of their failures.

  • Dear Mr. Ledeen,

    In your piece you say:

    “…In many places around the country, members of the Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton cult disrupt military funerals…”

    There is no such “cult.”

    You are quite rightly being panned as an idiot on the Carpetbagger Report right now. I dare you to defend yourself in the comment string there.

    Best,
    Haik Bedrosian

    PS- Mrs. Sheehan lost her son in this war you’re not fighting in. Have a little respect.

  • “This is more intellectual dishonesty.” That has been the typical problem of the right-wing for this last decade and before. They were supposed to be better than other ideologies. They were supposed the show everyone that their values, ideas, and agendas were superior pathways to their Utopias.

    Instead (as with the previous article on Bush) they have behaved like a bunch of used car salesmen, conning the suckers, and shilling for the rich.

  • My right-wing Republican retired Air Farce Colonel friend who believes that we would have won in Viet Nam if we’d stayed another six months agreed with me over the weekend that Cindy Sheehan has done more for America and the troops than the GW Bush administration has.

  • The other good news is Leeden will be mobbed by the yapping knuckle draggers who object to his statement that being anti-gay is disgusting AND the drooling psychos of Wetboro.

    I look forward to that particular episode of “Neo-Con Fuckwits Eat Their Own.”

  • At some point, we have to move out of the realm of “intellectual” dishonesty, and need to just call it plain, old “dishonesty.” These aren’t lies on one level and truth on another – they are just lies.

    The “correction” was just another chance to lie – he could have stopped with the acknowledgment that it was the anti-gay group, but he just couldn’t resist the opportunity to take one more punch at the left – I guess this shows that he hates the left more than he cares about the truth.

    When ideology trumps truth, bad things follow.

  • As difficult as it is for rational people to comprehend, Ledeen and most of the right-wing noise machine are not concerned with depicting reality or even making sense. Their purpose is to demonize Democrats while deifying Republicans.

    Logic means nothing; whipping the masses into an emotional, hate-filled frenzy is what matters. Once voters are riled up in moral indignation against the vile, godless left, they’ll vote Republican, completely unaware that they’re often voting against their own self-interests. Diverting attention to the enemy also allows Republicans to proceed with their real agenda with less scrutiny.

    Sheehan, Reid, Obama, Clinton each stir up the Republican faithful, but claiming a connection and adding the word “cult” is like building critical mass. Heads on the right will most assuredly explode at the suggestion.

    Ledeen knows exactly what he’s doing.

  • Michael Ledeen was one of the neo-conservatives yelling the loudest to go to war in Iraq. What I think is disgusting is that Ledeen’s wife, Barbara, was part of a group of people who threw parties once a month for the wounded being cared for at Walter Reed. Must’ve been a guilt trip, or something.

    They set aside the second Saturday of every month for a party, where volunteers and soldiers could meet. When the Iraq War started, she and two career officers -retired admiral John Totushek and Lt. Gen. Theodore Stroup Jr.–formed another group, the Helping Our Heroes Foundation, to help wounded veterans deal with financial crises, career and educational problems, and other challenges of reentry into civilian life. The group held a Memorial Day dinner last May that brought patients together with 35 Republican senators. The group’s first Hire a Hero evening-an event that brings veterans together with potential employers–was held on December 8.

    When Theobald and the patients ran into political problems-red tape and some institutional roadblocks–Theobald called Barbara Ledeen, an aide to Rick Santorum at the Senate Republican Conference who has a large circle of activist friends. Ledeen started coming to the Saturday parties, and before long she was acting as a one-woman switchboard, connecting veterans and families to their senators and congressmen, working to secure help and money, and leaning on uncooperative bureaucrats. In September 2003, Ledeen began sending out mass e-mails to all the Hill’s Republican staffers, urging them and their bosses to appear at the Saturday parties. Staffers from Tom DeLay’s office, for example, began to appear every month. Senators Ted Stevens, John Cornyn, and Jeff Sessions came, and spent hours visiting patients in wards.

  • Mr. Ledeen is an extremist – in his rhetoric, in his affiliations, in his world view, and in his policy advocations. Such extremism at this time America needs not! Mr. Ledeen would be doing every American a favor if he would simply have that long awaited personal epiphany inwhich he could clearly see the great damage his extremism has had upon all of us. -Kevo

  • And you gotta love the way Miss Leeden didn’t run the correction with the original piece. In print, that’s understandable. On the internon’s, that’s inexcusable.

    Side note: Ye olde Comments function is devouring posts at an alarming rate today and the back refresh retry doesn’t work.

  • What a stupid, kool-aid sucking quisling….

    For the record, Mr. Ledeen, I am not trying to disrupt military funerals. I am trying to disrupt military enlistments. Although it could be said that reducing the number of warm bodies entering the military will, by the nature of Mathematics, reduce the number of cold bodies exiting the military. But I cannot be accused of disrupting a thing that never began in the first place.

    think of it as an “anti-flag-draped-coffin defense shield….”

  • Maybe he’s laying the ground work for a new set of GOP barking points: The President was taking advice from someone who turned out to be crazy. Bush is the victim here.

  • Jeez Ledeen. How dare you leave Nancy Pelosi out of your alleged cult. She’s from San Francisco afterall. And no Michael Moore? What laziness is to be found among wingnuts these days.

  • Michael Ledeen, who goes back to cooking the books for Oliver North in the Iran-Contra Scandal, whose “intelligence” is so good he was the only person on the planet who knew that Iranian uber-Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was dead for ten whole days before he miraculously came back to life, providing this fantastic information to failed Hollywood con artist Roger L. Simon’s ripoff of Richard Scaife’s millions, Pantsload Media..

    Michael Ledeen, a fucking moron’s fucking moron. No wonder he writes for NRO and Pantsload Media, those founts of truth, justice and the Amerikan way.

    Don’t believe me? Go over to Glenn Greenwald’s blog and search on the name “Michael Ledeen.” The man is involved in more bullshit than one would think a person could be and still keep their mouth and nose above the pile in order to breathe.

  • kevo and Tom Cleaver have Leeden number.

    Michael Ledeen is a neo-con asshole extraordinaire.

  • This is the sort of thing that can’t be stressed enough.

    The “official narrative” in DC, from folks like David Broder, is that both sides do it.

    Whatever “it” is.

    All our solutions are to be found in Jesus bipartisanship.

    But one party is completely out of its fucking gourd.

    Ledeen is captain of his own spaceship. He should be yelling at passing cars from his broken-down porch.

    But instead (or maybe “in addition”), he’s a highly regarded advisor to the president of the goddamn country.

    I’m sure that “bipartisanship” was a fine lodestar in 1970, but it defies belief that people could genuinely think that that’s the cure for all our ills today.

    It’s a fine enough principle, and it beats Rove’s “party-uber-alles” approach, but it won’t work until the GOP is sane again.

  • Ledeen may have been extemporizing and gotten some details wrong, but his main point is substantially correct. The “Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton cult” recently tried to deprive our troops of the essential means to defend themselves. Fortunately President Bush stood firm and squashed this shameful treachery.

  • 20. Ledeen may have been extemporizing and gotten some details wrong, but his main point is substantially correct. The “Sheehan-Reid-Obama-Clinton cult” recently tried to deprive our troops of the essential means to defend themselves. Fortunately President Bush stood firm and squashed this shameful treachery.

    Not only have you gotten “some details” wrong, your main point is “substantially” incorrect. There is no S-R-O-C cult. A majority of Congress, however, did attempt to (1) fully fund the troops while (2) setting a timeline for their withdrawal, thus eliminating the need for them to defend themselves in an ill-conceived, terribly-executed and unnecessary adventure — one in which 80 percent of the local population now believes it’s okay to attack U.S. troops. Unfortunately, President Bush vetoed the funding that was offered in order to continue the treachery of keeping our troops in the middle of a civil war in order to deny his own failure.

  • Ledeen is a fascist pure & simple & has ties to rightwing elements in Italy going back to the 70s. So any involvement in the Niger forgeries should not come as a surprise. I had a friend who went to Italy on a Fulbright in 1976. One of the speakers during an orientation program at the Rome offices of the Fulbright scholarships was Ledeen, an academic who had somehow or other been receiving open-ended funding for his studies of Italian fascism for years (something supposedly unheard of in the Fulbright program). From his public remarks & a few conversations in private, my friend came to the conclusion that Ledeen had gone from mere intellectual interest in fascism to full-fledged espousal of its principles. He also called him one of the spookiest individuals he had ever met— always wearing dark glasses inside as well as outside –and trying to draw newcomers into conversations revealing their political views. Amongst the Fulbrights, his nickname was “The Narc.”

    • Comments are closed.