Saturday, May 12, 2007

Rightwing Desperation, Howard Dean and the Vast Leftwing Conspiracy


The Democratic National Committee has filed two cease-and-desist letters in response to claims made by those bastions of make-believe, FreeRepublic and XM radio.

Rightwingers are charging that there is a vast leftwing conspiracy to make Bush appear to be an incompetent moron who is endangering the nation.

Gee, what will the Left think of next?

As the rightwing story goes, DNC Chairman Howard Dean instructed Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius to make the assertion that it is difficult to respond adequately to natural disasters when half your National Guard trucks and many well-trained personnel are in Iraq.

The website FreeRepublic.com, citing an XM radio show, said Thursday that "Dean called Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius early, around 5 am, one morning after the tornado had destroyed the town of Greensburg, Kansas and discussed with her what to say about the tornado and how to blame the war in Iraq and the Bush administration on a slow response to the aftermath."

According to Democrats, the conversation never occurred.

By early Friday afternoon, the cease and desist letter was posted on a FreeRepublic thread that had garnered more than 250 comments disparaging the Democrats. The Quinn & Rose Show homepage also was still alleging the Dean-Sebelius conversation took place. . .

The letters issued by the party's lawyer, Joseph E. Sandler, were sent to James Robinson of FreeRepublic and Dara Altman, the Executive Vice President of XM Satellite Radio.

"The statement made by Mr. Quinn, repeated on FreeRepublic.com is demonstrably, uneqivocably and absolutely false," Sandler wrote. "Governor Dean had no such conversation with Governor Sebelius, ever."

Major General Melvyn S. Montano has apparently joined in the leftwing conspiracy with his assertion that "the war in Iraq has stretched National Guard resources to a breaking point."

And the moral of the story is: if it sounds rational, it must be a leftwing conspiracy.