GOP lawmaker hops on the Right-Wing Smear Train

February 24, 2008

I used to think, years ago, that there was a difference between right-wing lawmakers and right-wing activists. They shared common goals and worldviews, but those who were actually elected to public office had to be, by virtue of their professional duties, a little responsible. When they spoke, they were speaking for hundreds of thousands of constituents, while the Coulters and Limbaughs of the world only had to worry about humiliating themselves. It was incumbent on even the most unhinged GOP lawmakers, I thought, to use at least a modicum of dignity.

Fortunately, I quickly realized how silly this assumption really was. Some of these Republican officials are just clownish as their most unhinged supporters. Indeed, in a few cases, they’re even worse.

Overtime, and pretty quickly now, it’ll make sense to keep a list of stuff like this. On Friday night’s Bill Maher show, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) claimed that Barack Obama refuses to say the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. This along with other bogus claims about Obama come from the hoax emails circulating on the internet.

Now, I’ve seen Kingston interviewed on several occasions, and one realizes that he’s either frighteningly dumb or he’s pretending to be frighteningly dumb. The difference may actually matter in a case like this — if one assumes the moronic things he says is part of an elaborate act, then one can safely assume he knows the truth but prefers to lie. If his imbecilic remarks are genuine, then Kingston is probably not a liar, but rather someone just barely sharp enough to tie his shoes in the morning.

The Huffington Post’s Ryan Davis was in the studio for the Maher filming, and noted the string of foolishness.

* Rambling on about Michelle Obama’s patriotism, Kingston either lied or is completely misinformed about her “pride” remark, “She could have jumped up and said ‘You know what, that’s not what I meant to say and I’m sorry if people are twisting it – this is politics,’ but she hasn’t said anything!”

That, of course, is obviously false. Both Michelle and Barack Obama have commented on the remarks frequently.

* Kingston tells us that Obama refuses to say the Pledge Of Allegiance, citing the “famous picture” of Obama not saluting the flag.

Again, ridiculous. I marvel at the kind of uninformed people who buy into bogus email smears, but Kingston is suggesting that Republican members of the U.S. House are just susceptible to falling for a right-wing con.

The Congressman says Obama wants to “Bomb Pakistan” – which is a broad oversimplification of the truth. “Barack Obama has never said he would “attack Pakistan.” According to Obama’s website, he has said that he would attack “high-level terrorist targets” even within Pakistan, a policy which has been endorsed in the Washington Post by the Co-Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton.

* Attacking Obama’s legislative record, Kingston tells quite a few lies. “There is nothing out there that he’s done,” is an old lazy favorite. “Obama hasn’t reached across party lines” is a canard Republican Senators like Bond, Coburn, Hagel, and Lugar would disagree with since each of them have worked closely on bills with Senator Obama. Kingston says Obama didn’t oppose the Military Commissions Act, but he did oppose it.

The mind reels.

Kingston also brought up the lapel pin “controversy”.

Check out the Overtime over at HBO. The first email pointed out the fact that Kingston didn’t wear a lapel pin either.

  • It is Rep. Kingston, if I remember correctly, who managed to name about 6 of the 10 Commandments on “The Colbert Report.” So I think we have the answer to your opening question.

  • The National Journal considers Kingston to be “right” of Tom DeLay. I don’t think Kingston is dumb….I do think he’s going to be an inflammatory as possible and has no problem with promulgating untrue negative stories about those he considers an “enemy.”

  • Sadly, Kingston is the congressman for Savannah, GA, an area so conservative that, as long as he stays as he is (yes, stupid), he’s assured a permanent seat in congress. He’s a classic BMovement conservative. Sorry, Friend of Bill, what was disappointing to me was that Maher just let it go and said nothing to refute the BS. In fact, the whole “panel” segment was disappointing. It also included David(?) Frum. The liberal was a woman who said practically nothing. She and Bill were pretty much overwhelmed by Kingston and Frum. Not one of Bill’s better nights

  • #2 I believe it was Rep. Lynn Westmoreland who was unable to come up with many of the 10 Commandments.

  • The right-wingnuts are flailing about, uncertain if Hillary will win the nomination. They’ve had years to prepare an endless amount of nonsense about the evil, evil Clintons. Obama is so new they’ve not had time to invent a lot of crap and they keep recirculating the same tired myths. They keep hysterically grasping at fairly minor stuff. I suspect we’ll soon start to see more ‘creative’ smears than Kingston used. I wonder how close they’ll get to openly attacking his race.

  • And what, collectively, should be our response to trash talking, lies, and smears of anti-patriotism from a group of people who support the war with OUR kids, not theirs; who support a prezidunce who went AWOL; and who support a VP who took FIVE deferments rather that go go fight for his country like a patriotic American? My personal response is renewed and stronger support for Obama, in terms of time and money. How about you? If we simply sit here and simply bitch about the unfairness on a blog, we accomplish little. If we use this to energize us to renewed commitment and intensified action, then the GOP slash and burn character assassination strategy can backfire right into their own hypocritical faces. I am planning on giving on the Obama website TODAY as a result of Grand snake-Oil Party’s lying, slander and rank hypocrisy. How about you? What will you do? Collectively, either through money, time, organizing talent, volunteering, or anything that will help counter-act the GOP smear machine, we can stop their current attempt to swift-boat yet another qualified and committed Democratic candidate.

  • If anyone watches the House floor speeches on c-span they would know what a nutjob Kingston really is. He is one of the most obnoxious neo-cons in the House and is one of the most disingenuous in political discourse.

  • I haven’t caught this particular program yet, but I’ll look for it. Maher must have brought him on to demonstrate how stupid this guy is because Kingston, if he has any smarts at all, would know that Maher’s audience are not the Right-wing faithful. Nor is Maher going to coddle him.

    I think it’s important to remember that all those constituents Kingston represents elected him (or a majority of them did) so how much smarter are they than he? Did all his supporters come to a willing suspension of disbelief about his denseness, and then vote for him anyway? i doubt it.

  • How can you “smear” someone with connections to Soros, William Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, a Wahabi school in Jakarta, the indicted Tony Rezko, extremist groups and individuals (e.g. Siraj Wahhaj, Bilal Philips, Ahmed Deedat, Jamal Badawi, Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, and Abdul Rahman Al-Sudais), Jeremiah Wright, Hamas and Hezbollah sympathizer Robert Malley, Muslim Americans for Obama ’08 ( they want “Muslim prayer areas in public places and giving Muslims time off for prayer”), Ali Abunimah, Zakiyah Omar, ISNA, etc.?!?

  • Unfortunately, smiley (5) is so right. Bill Maher didn’t even challenge the pledge or Pakistan comments. I seriously don’t think he knew any better. He may be quick-witted, but he’s not particularly well-informed. I would be shocked if he reads a daily newspaper or a news magazine. In fact I’m sure many will remember he was crusading for Ralph Nader in 2000, claiming there was no difference between Gore and Bush. He’s not even as funny as Seaberry.

    Also, just to confirm, Hannah (6) is right. It was Westmoreland on Colbert, at least for the 10 Commandments section. I do think Kingston was on his show a different time, though.

    Finally, I know we have talked the Michelle Obama “pride” thing to death, but one more thought on it. Sometimes “proud” means “unapologetically unashamed” and sometimes it means “enthused by accomplishment”. When you put Michelle’s comment against Cindy McCain’s, you can clearly see the difference.

  • please, someone who has seen it, tell me Maher took this guy apart

    I am sorry to report that Maher let one lie after another spew forth from Kingston without comment. They were so transparently bogus that any reader of this blog would have been able to rip the guy apart point by point. Yet for the most part Maher just sat there, even as the audience sometimes responded with jeers. It makes me wonder just how up on these Rethug talking points Maher really is. Granted, the alacrity with which Kingston tossed this garbage out would have made for a constant stream of refutation by Maher had he decided (or known enough) to counter him, which may not have made for good TV, but I think it would have been far better than what we got. Kingston should have ended the show exposed and embarrassed as a lying hack. Instead, he got out almost all his talking points without a quibble from Maher. Definitely not a good night on Real Time. Frum only added to the BS, but Kingston was definitely the main offender.

  • Oh, and CB: If Seaberry’s bullshit at #11 isn’t enough (piled onto all the other crap he’s regurgitated here) to ban him from your comments section, then I submit that you are being tolerant to the point of ridiculousness.

  • And Obama thinks he will be able to work on a bipartisan basis with the further condensed down (post November 2008 election) Republicans in the House and Senate, how? The remaining GOP in both the House and Senate will be, in their smaller, diluted numbers, even more wingnutty and outside of the mainstream, and much more willing to lie, cheat and steal to try and prevent any Democrat from advancing any progressive idea. Although I do not believe that Obama is so naive to think that he will achieve much bipartisanship–he is setting himself up well to win over moderate GOP voters/independents, and would be able to say he called for bipartisanship during the runup to the election and that he tried to bring GOP legislators into the fold to compromise, but they simply refused.

  • Maher must have brought him on to demonstrate how stupid this guy is because Kingston, if he has any smarts at all, would know that Maher’s audience is not the Right-wing faithful. Nor is Maher going to coddle him.—Rich @ 10

    Sadly Maher did coddle him. It was pathetic. He let one BS remark after another pass without comment and allowed the two conservatives to filibuster through the entire evening. I was a very disappointed to see Maher allow so many factual errors to go unchallenged.

  • And Obama thinks he will be able to work on a bipartisan basis with the further condensed down (post November 2008 election) Republicans in the House and Senate, how?

    bubba – How is it that you guys can continue to make this argument as if it means anything? Was Hillary planning to do anything without any bi-partisan support? Without even the pretext of trying to be bi-partisan? Of course not. She’s touted her ability to reach across the aisle for years. So I fail to understand your point.

    Obama’s argument wasn’t that he could woo every Republican or even most of them. But he’s put himself in a position where he can make these attempts. Or at least, when the partisan wars start, he’s better positioned to have “centrists” like Broder proclaim him to be an member of the bi-partisan league, while denouncing his opponents as partisan hacks. That’s always been our problem in the past, as Republicans owned the bi-partisan label and so we were attacked as hacks whenever we weren’t “bi-partisan”. Maybe Obama’s ruse won’t work, but at least we’re in a position to fix this problem.

    Every Democratic president would have the same problem you cite. Obama is the only one who properly positioned himself to do something about it. And for that, he’s attacked. That was always one of the Clintons’ biggest problems: They’re good with tactics, but they lack strategy. Obama, on the other hand, has been positioning himself properly for years; not just by building a good ground game, but in his overall theme. It wasn’t luck that he came along when he did. He’s really that good. Obama was a firey rockstar back when Hillary, Edwards, and Kerry were trying to show how tough their foreign policy was. They had to change their song as the times change; Obama’s been singing the same one the whole time.

    BTW – Citing a famously buttheaded Republican hack as evidence of how they’ll all act is absurd. The focus is on moderate Republicans in blue and purple states; not jerkoffs from extremely red districts. We don’t have to win all the Republicans in Congress. Just enough of them. And no other Democratic president could have done otherwise.

  • Adding: Kingston represents Georgia’s 1st congressional district, which includes all of coastal Georgia and about 3-5 counties inland. It’s very conservative. Kingston is from Savannah, the district’s largest city (I think, pop. ~125,000). He’s a former insurance salesman — not that there’s anything wrong with that. Savannah, a pretty cool place for a small southern city, is not so conservative (like NOLA, you can get “go cups” at bars and take your adult beverages with you while you walk the streets — to the next bar) and is probably considered a liberal outpost by the district’s wingnutyist elements. Quiz question: Which city has the largest St. Patrick’s Day celebration second only to Boston? Answer: Savannah. Please don’t blame Savannah for Kingston (um, do I sound like a homer here?).

  • Dr. Bio, you simply, again, choose to ignore the second half of my comment, so I assume, again, you are simply being intentionally obtuse and difficult. You seem to really just like to try and force arguments and differences when there really are none there.

    And unless you have had your head up your rear for the past 14 years or so, you would recognize that the clear trend in the GOP has been to eliminate moderates across the board. The numbers, as well as the positions of those left, speak for themselves. You may choose to ignore it, and that is your right.

  • Dr. Bio, you simply, again, choose to ignore the second half of my comment, so I assume, again, you are simply being intentionally obtuse and difficult.

    If anything, I think the problem is that you keep saying two different things. Because the second half of your comment is the answer to the first; not part of the same issue. You’re still trying to hold onto some parts of the anti-Obama rhetoric while realizing that it’s not true. It’s like your brain tells you what’s going on, but your heart still wants to hold onto your initial worries about him. It’s not my fault that you keep saying things that are contradicted by your own statements. As with our last discussion, I’m only disagreeing with the parts I mentioned; we seem to be in agreement on everything else.

    As for the GOP trying to get rid of moderates, I agree. But they’ll never be fully successful. Republicans cannot even have an effective minority if they only hold the reddest parts of America. They need the purple areas, and those Congressmen will not be able to resist a popular mandate from Obama. GOP congressmen aren’t stupid. They’ll toe the line as long as they’re convinced it’s the best way to stay in power. And the more these Congressmen will resist him, the more damage they’ll suffer. Throughout the Clinton-era and much of the Bush-era, it’d be stupid for any Republican to not follow the party’s orders. But since 2004 and into the future, obedience will just hurt most of them; as evidenced by the 2006 election.

    Sure, jokers like Kingston won’t ever be on our side, but we don’t need him. We need to stop seeing Republicans as one giant monolith, and understand that they’re a loose-knit coalition too. They can be picked apart just like any group. You just need to find their weakness and exploit it. It’s never a good strategy to lump all your enemies into one group. More than anything, these Republican Congressmen want to remain Congressmen. We need to exploit that to our advantage.

  • Bill Maher constantly disappoints in cases like this. First of all, if he is going to
    have a show about current affairs he should take the time to inform himself on
    current affairs. Secondly, he should have staff doing a live fact check whenever a
    right wing nutjob is on his show. Any intern could have disproved Kingston’s remark
    with a Google search. The policy on Bill’s show, and all news shows for that matter, should
    be that guest’s statements are going to be fact checked. The guests should be exposed
    if they are lying. The audience should get the proper and true information. Guests caught
    lying should banned from future appearances. When your name is on a show it is your
    responsibility to stand behind the content of your show.

  • I’m with John Moody. I’ve never understood the appeal of Bill Maher. While he can skewer people, he generally strikes me as fairly ignorant and he just seems more like he’s posturing than that he really knows what he’s talking about. Kind of like a Bill O’Reilly, but without being such an asswipe. But without a doubt, I’ve never seen him as being any kind of political junkie who really knows what he’s talking about. I think the typical blogger knows far more about what’s going on than Maher, and they don’t have any kind of staff at all.

    The real appeal of Maher and many of the other celebrities who some liberals idolize as being outspoken is really just the fact that we’re so unaccustomed to hearing celebrities be outspoken on liberal issues that we flock to the few who do. But even Al Franken isn’t the liberal sage he’s been made out to be. Give me an Atrios, Josh Marshall, or Carpetbagger any day over Franken. And Maher doesn’t even belong in Franken’s category. Maher is just a comedian who happens to cover political issues; not a political guru who tells jokes. I don’t dislike him, but I sure wish he’d bother learning about this stuff a bit more before he speaks. Remember, his biggest claim to fame is that he’s “politically incorrect,” which is a concept that doesn’t really exist.

  • One of my co-workers was recently so worked up with the odds on prospect of a black man or white woman President that he is considering moving to Canada.

    I told him that at least he would get better healthcare.

    I’m sure we’re just getting started on seeing how well all the wingnuts can handle reality. Obviously heads are already exploding.

    Best just to label Kingston’s crap as one more wingnut with an exploded head and move on.

  • This is what made Kingston memorable for me:

    (Washington Post, December 6, 2006)

    Next year, members of the House will be expected in the Capitol for votes each week by 6:30 p.m. Monday and will finish their business about 2 p.m. Friday, Hoyer said.
    […]
    “Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/05/AR2006120501342.html

  • Thanks, Katie @26, for the quote and attribution; I remembered the words but didn’t remember who said them. So it’s Kingston, eh? All family values and no work ethics and, if you scratch a bit, probably no real family values, either.

    As for Maher… Bleh. I can’t understand why my husband likes him so; if I were inclined to put up with the d***d commercials, I’d watch Stewart and Colbert. Much better informed and twice as funny without the filthy language. Most people stop tittering at every dirty word somewhere between 17 and 20; it’s no longer a big deal when you’re a grown-up.

  • Kingston also managed to mention Obama’s middle name in an attempt to stir up some more hatred. He and Maher were both talking at the same time so it may have gone unnoticed but Kingston definitely worked it into his smear job.

  • My response? For what it’s worth, a comment about the show to Maher:

    Mr. Maher, I applaud you for giving people like David Frum and Congressman Kingston a platform from which to share their views. However, I must say that I was surprised and a bit dismayed that you allowed such egregious misstatements as those repeated by the Congressman about Senator Obama to go unchallenged. I found it uncharacteristically soft of you to give him such free rein to impugn the Senator’s character with his recitation of the RNC talking points of the day on your show.

    Senator Obama’s patriotism has been questioned because he declined to wear a flag lapel pin and was observed not to have placed his hand over his heart during the playing of the National Anthem. This, of a man who has spent his entire adult life fighting in the urban trenches of Chicago for his fellow citizens’ equal rights and equal opportunities to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, as the Constitution guarantees every American? This, of a man who is a highly respected U.S. Constitutional Law scholar and has been a Constitutional Law instructor at one of the nation’s most highly regarded Schools of Law? I agree that showing respect for the flag and the National Anthem is important, but I disagree that these external displays of flag etiquette are sufficient to determine the real measure of one’s patriotism.

    Perhaps people who are so concerned about patriotism, like Congressman Kingston, would better serve this country by railing against a President who intentionally manipulated intelligence and media so as to falsely allege a national security threat and deceive the Congress on the rationale to go to war against Iraq. They should be decrying the President’s unilateral decision to deny the Constitutional right to habeas corpus for certain American citizens. They should be condemning how the President has bypassed laws of conflict and set aside treaties ratified by Congress. They should be fulminating at how the President willfully interprets legislation and laws in flagrant defiance of both Congressional intent and the Supreme Court’s precedents. They should be ranting at the President’s violation of the separation of powers when he ordered the FBI to conduct an unconstitutional search and seizure of Congressional documents. I could go on and on, but lack the time or patience to cite the hundreds of instances since he took office in which President Bush has claimed the authority to disobey laws of the land as he sees fit, in direct violation of his Constitutional mandate.

    To those who are so concerned with patriotism I suggest they show some real love for their country and turn their attention to what their President has been doing (and is still doing) in our country’s name these past 7 years. A real patriot would demand that his fellow citizens, especially his President, uphold the ideals, principles and laws of the land, which the flag represents. In these respects, I think Senator Obama has been a model patriot and I have great faith in his ability to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

    No, he ain’t the Messiah, and I don’t expect him to deliver us to the Promised Land — but at least with him, I suspect we’ll get awfully close. Lacking any sort of internal compass, Senator Clinton is likely to get us lost along the way; Senator McCain will surely deliver us to the gates of Hell.

  • As I said once before (April 10, 2007, here, to be exact, according to Google):

    As Mark Twain once said: “Consider a Congressman, then consider an idiot. Ah, but I repeat myself.”

    Kingston really is that stupid – the living example of everything I’m thinking of when I say “southern-friend moron.”

  • Biobrain, dude, totally… How many of these Republicans have we ‘won’ across to our side?

    Clinton has done more across the aisle than Obama, despite the rhetoric. But she knows she’s campaigning for the Democratic nomination, not the Republican one, and so it’s not as big a deal here. She’s done it, Obama has as well. They’re not that different in that regard. Perhaps Obama expects more out of it…

    But geez, don’t go saying that Republicans from purple districts are Democrat-lite. If they were Democrat-leaning, they went Democrat long ago.

    That’s why we have two centrist candidates for the Democratic nomination and a bunch of crazy hoots and one sell-out centrist for the Republican one.

    We already lost our chance to have a liberal candidate.

  • That’s why we have two centrist candidates for the Democratic nomination and a bunch of crazy hoots and one sell-out centrist for the Republican one.

    I haven’t yet had it explained to me exactly how Obama is a centrist. In what way has he ceded any territory to the Republicans? Hillary has repeatedly made a point of showing she’s as “tough” as a neo-con in foreign policy, but Obama hasn’t. And his policies sure sound liberal to me. The mistake people keep making is that centrists use liberal rhetoric to sell conservative policies to liberals. Obama is using centrist rhetoric to sell liberal policies to centrists. They might sound similar, but the results are entirely different.

    And I really wish people would stop taking the wrong lessons from the past. We are facing a historical election. After November, all the rules will be different; unless, that is, we want to keep pretending they’re the same. But I’m telling you, we’re heading into uncharted territory. Maybe they’ll be the same, maybe not. But the old rules just don’t apply.

  • Off Topic (but worth a read)
    The Pentagon tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us
    Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..

    A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas, as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.

    The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.

    ‘Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,’ concludes the Pentagon analysis. ‘Once again, warfare would define human life.’

    The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.

    The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

    So, is the answer to keep spending up large on the military (it’s gonna get real nasty in the future), or do we STOP spending large on the military and start spending on combating climate change (whatever the reason that is causing it, be it man or nature)?

  • Bill Maher’s a worthless hack. Sometimes he’s funny, but come one…he talks about politics: the jokes write themselves. He claims to be all for freedom of speech, just don’t disagree with him. He’s mostly for people who get all of their information from rag local newspapers and NPR, which leads them to believe that they are deeply informed. Whenever someone starts a sentence with “Bill Maher said…”, i turn on my husband ears and smile politely.

  • Lex (34): “Whenever someone starts a sentence with “Bill Maher said…”, i turn on my husband ears and smile politely.”

    Lex, you’re a nicer guy than I am. But thanks. I couldn’t hold back the laugh.

  • I saw the show this past weekend, as I always do. He seemed to hit too many talking points all too well, leading me to think it was all designed to start a smear campaign against Obama. He came across as the typical disgusting Republican liar.

  • “My name is Bill Gillespie, and I’m Jack Kingston’s election opponent in 2008. Here Jack goes again, seeking the spotlight and spending the taxpayers time politicking instead of serving the people of District 1. Jack is in Congress for one purpose: to represent the people of South Georgia, fighting for what’s best for our region and America. He is not there to campaign for President. Partisan publicity stunts like this interview only waste taxpayers’ money and make South Georgia look bad. This is no surprise though. For several years now Jack has put his political party and special interest friends ahead of the people he represents. As Congressman, all my energy will be focused on serving South Georgia and putting the people first. Visit my website to find out more: http://www.billforgeorgia.com.”

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