{"id":10390,"date":"2007-04-02T17:07:07","date_gmt":"2007-04-02T21:07:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/10390.html"},"modified":"2007-04-02T17:07:07","modified_gmt":"2007-04-02T21:07:07","slug":"the-bush-gang-smears-a-friend-delicately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/the-bush-gang-smears-a-friend-delicately\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bush gang smears a friend — delicately"},"content":{"rendered":"

Following up on a couple of earlier items, we knew the Bush White House would respond to Matthew Dowd’s epiphany<\/a> by undermining his name and credibility, we just didn’t know how. Call him “disgruntled”? Accuse him of partisanship? Start spreading rumors about him personally? The Rove Playbook is thick; Bush aides have a lot of choices.<\/p>\n

They seem to have settled on a personal approach — they’re dropping hints that Dowd’s judgment is impaired due to problems in his personal life.<\/p>\n

At today’s White House press briefing, Dana Perino explained<\/a> that she’d heard “nothing but fabulous things” about Dowd from colleagues, but added, “I don’t know as well as others might about the personal journey he’s been on over the past couple of years.”<\/p>\n

A reporter asked, “What does that mean, ‘personal journey’?” Perino noted that Dowd has experienced some “personal hardship.” It led to an almost comical exchange.<\/p>\n

Q: Is that related? Is that relevant?<\/p>\n

PERINO: I don’t know. I don’t know Matthew and —<\/p>\n

Q: Then why do you bring it up?<\/p>\n

PERINO: Well, I think that — he brought it up in the article, and I think that it’s relevant. And I think that it’s true that when you have a parent who is going to see his or her son or daughter heading off to war, in a war that is — where we are fighting a very determined enemy, in which the Congress is not fully backing the troops, it would be a concern. And I’m just not going to judge him. I’m going to allow him to have his views and wish him well.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As Paul Kiel (who has video) put it<\/a>, Perino “went into a death spiral of talking points, almost losing her way in the middle of a meandering sentence.” She’s busy calling Dowd’s emotional state into question when she slips in a slam on Congress and Iraq, just for good measure.<\/p>\n

These guys really know no limits.
\n
\nIt was, by the way, the same approach Dan Bartlett took<\/a> yesterday on Face the Nation. <\/p>\n

Bartlett said Dowd has been on a “long personal journey\u2026in his private life” and that he had become too emotional over the war. CBS host Bob Schieffer interrupted to ask: “Are you suggesting he’s having some kind of personal problems and this is just what has resulted?” Bartlett denied that’s what he was doing, but then returned to his talking point, suggesting Dowd’s views should be evaluated in light of the fact the he was going through “personal turmoil.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Amazing.<\/p>\n

Forget for a moment whether Dowd deserves forgiveness for his role in foisting a reckless incompetent on the world. The fact is one of Dowd’s premature twin daughters died, he went through a divorce, his oldest son is off to Iraq as an Army intelligence specialist, and he claims to have struggled for years with his doubt about Bush’s presidency. Now, he’s speaking out against the president he says he misjudged. It’s part of what Dowd calls his duty to “restore balance when things didn’t turn out the way they should have.”<\/p>\n

The Bush gang can’t come right out and smear the guy directly, so they’re subtle. He’s experienced “personal turmoil.” He’s seen “personal hardship.” The underlying message is as subtle as a sledgehammer: Dowd’s judgment isn’t reliable, so his opinions shouldn’t be taken seriously.<\/p>\n

Dowd is finally coming clean, and he had to know the push-back was coming. But going after his personal life? This is what the White House does to its friends<\/i>; no wonder these guys never hesitate to screw the rest of us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following up on a couple of earlier items, we knew the Bush White House would respond to Matthew Dowd’s epiphany by undermining his name and credibility, we just didn’t know how. Call him “disgruntled”? Accuse him of partisanship? Start spreading rumors about him personally? The Rove Playbook is thick; Bush aides have a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10390","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10390","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10390"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10390\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10390"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10390"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10390"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}