You are not scared enough, dammit!

BOO!

Boo, boo, boo boo boo! And a nasty "Bleargh!" as well!

Reinhard scored the front page of Sunday's commentary section in the Oregonian, doing what Republicans do best: getting people scared over nothing.

He thinks it is abhorrent that the public is not more scared. After all, THE TERRORISTS ARE EVERYWHERE!

Or so says Evan Kohlmann, who gave a frightening speech (discredited by the Oregon US Attorney at the podium) at the Sheraton last week that Reinhard attended. Our favorite ditto-head peed his pants out of fear of the terrorists, and so should we, he says.

"The paradox is that the better job law-enforcement does the more complacent the public becomes." Why, exactly, is this a bad thing? Complacent citizens make good consumers, which makes rich men richer. Why does Republican Reinhard have a problem with that?

Presumably because we are not being "vigilant" in noticing the threats to our "homeland." Reinhard helps us with out vigilance by listing the names of browner people than he, and the names of Islamic organizations to fear.

"The targets are here at home," he says. Really? Where? Since the World Trade Center towers were destroyed, I don't remember seeing any terror attacks in America.

"We're fighting them in Iraq so that we don't have to fight them here," remember, Dave?

My only guess is, if he can frighten enough Oregonians before 2006, a Republican might have a shot riding on Bush's very tattered coattails. That is Reinhard's typical political play: use disinformation and fear to try and sell the public something they don't need and they don't want.

Praise the dead Ditto-head!

Reinhard’s latest piece of excrement that masquerades for a column praises John Holmason, someone Reinhard has never met, for something he heard his stepmom say.

He “believed 100 percent in what he was fighting for,” she said.

Reinhard dedicates a full quarter of his column to make the point that the Lance Corporal should be honored not just because of his service, or his enrollment in the military, or his fighting for the US, but also, because he was fully and thoroughly brainwashed.

He then bounces around in seeming incoherence, reciting bullet points from the RNC counterattacks against Democrats about the war, with no bother to craft them together into one story.

“In brief, how do embrace (sic) the Democratic defeatism du jour and not tell the family of a dead soldier that their loved one has died in vain?”

You can't. Troops have died in vain. We can either keep pretending that they didn't, and let more troops die in vain, or we can apologize to the troops, and their families, and impeach George W. Bush.

What Reinhard and other RNC propagandists are unwilling to accept is that the Democrats have been right about this from the beginning. Their current defense goes like this:

“Well, now that it’s proved that you’re right, we can’t act like you’re actually right, or it would dishonor the troops!”

Bullshit.

The troops deserve to know, more than the rest of us civilians, exactly how this war started. They have the right to know they are acting as mercenaries for the oil industry, so they can choose whether to continue in that capacity or not. Some will stay. Others, who would leave, are being swindled into risking their lives; and that is not just wrong, it is plain evil.

Bad Republicans! Bad, Bad Republicans!

In Dave’s most recent article, he attempts to play conflict mediator between quarrelling Republican candidates for Governor Ron Saxton and Kevin Mannix. It appears that he’s trying to end the smear campaign between the two of them. In doing so, he overlooks one key point: Saxton and Mannix are Republicans. Smearing their opponent is second nature.

Dave has every reason to be concerned about any possible nastiness between the competing Republicans. The primaries for Governor may not be for another half-year but this year’s Republican primary appears that it will be every bit as nasty as 2002’s. The Republican candidates- Saxton, Mannix, and Lane County Commissioner Jack Roberts- did such an effective job decimating each other in that year’s race to see who could come second to Democrat Ted Kulongowski, that Mannix prevailed with an underwhelming 35% of the votes cast in the primary to secure the Republican nomination. With two-thirds of registered Republicans in the state effectively voting against him, and his vanquished opponents offering the most listless of support, Mannix faced an uphill climb to restore Republican rule to Mahonia Hall.

As someone with a vested interest in Republican rule of the state, Dave attempts to put an end to the political infighting before it develops into a re-run of 2002. The issue at hand dividing the Republicans? Former Democrat governor and mayor of Portland, Neil Goldschmidt.

As reported in the Portland Tribune- never thought I’d be citing a story from there, but that’s besides the point- Republican lawyer Mark Foster has formed a PAC called Worried Oregonians to oppose Saxton’s candidacy due to Saxton’s close personal and political ties with the disgraced former Governor. However, as Foster was a lawyer for the Bush-Cheney Recount in Florida in 2000, and for the Oregon Bush-Cheney Voter Integrity Project of 2004- he should know that close ties with unsavory characters doesn’t matter when it comes to a Republican candidates’ integrity. In fact, with Governor Ted’s victory, it proved that both parties can be immune from such associations.

Instead, Dave writes that Saxton’s ties with Goldschmidt- if you’re looking for a Republican victory for Governor- will leave you ‘deep down in the dumps’ which has to be either the worst word choice ever, or just a sad attempt at alliteration. Dave does highlight Saxton’s connections with Goldschmidt (Goldschmidt’s wife, Diana, actually, who Saxton served as a personal lawyer), but also highlights Mannix’s connection with Neil, with a 1999 Mannix quote in the Statesman Journal: “[G]ov. Neil Goldschmidt and Vera Katz convinced me to run for the House . . ."

There has been no politician with such a singular effect on Oregon politics over the past half-century as Messr Goldschmidt. His influence is far-reaching, with everyone from Multnomah County Sherriff Bernie Giusto to former Mayor Vera Katz to former Republican Senator Mark Hatfield benefiting from the Goldschmidt touch. A brilliant and pioneering urban planner who served as Secretary of Transportation in the Carter Administration, Goldschmidt has left an undeniable mark on Oregon’s politics. A legacy that has since been sullied, due to last year’s revelations of improper sexual relations with the daughter of a City Hall employee during his stint as mayor. (These revelations were scooped by the Willamette Week, who broke the ‘worst-kept’ secret in spring of 2004. You would think that if Dave was as connected with the Republican elite ‘loop’ in Oregon as he makes himself out to be, he was more than likely aware of this secret, and conceivably could’ve scooped the Willy and won himself a Pulitzer. Why The Oregonian as a whole dropped the ball on le affair Goldschmidt is both astounding and puzzling.)

Dave accuses Worried Oregonians and their Rove-ian tactics of being ‘cheesy’ and ‘advises them to fold up their tents,’ similar advice he should’ve given to the Swift Boat Liars. But as the Swifties never went away from the Presidential Campaign in 2004, why should Worried Oregonians, despite their negative effect onthe Republicans’ chances, fold up? If they have some concerns, shouldn’t their first-amendment rights be observed?

Dave takes the chance to target Governor Ted, and has his usual list of Republican complaints. I’m going to admit: I am squarely in Governor Ted’s camp. Any Governor- or elected leader- who takes it upon himself to attend every funeral of an Oregon soldier that died in Iraq earns points in my book. Governor Ted has worked resiliently to bring corporations and jobs into economically under-served parts of the state. His insistence on pushing through civil-unions and auto emissions legislation under fire from the other side demonstrates the mark of a strong, decisive leader willing to take the side of what’s morally right rather than the side of what’s currently popular. Though I have concerns about the State’s fiscal situation- and would hope the Governor raises an issue of the corporate “kicker” sending hundreds of millions of Oregon tax-dollars to out-of-state corporations- Oregon’s schools and economy are a marked improvement then they were four years ago. So Dave isn’t going to vote for him. Big surprise.

Dave ends his column with a barb of Governor Ted- by appointing an experienced and effective Goldschmidt to the State’s higher-ed post- recycling the ‘same ol’, same ol’ Democrats. Occasionally, Dave can be humorous. But him making this point when the Republican front-runners for Governor are Kevin Mannix and Ron Saxton is just too rich….

true_slicky 12.06.05

Kill the Darkie!

I have a hard time discerning whether Reinhard is a flat-out racist in his Dec. 01 article, or if he is using racism to justify the killing of Stanley "Tookie" Williams, the founder of the Crips.

First he excoriates everyone who has risen to the Crips' founder's defense, and identifies them as "Snoop Dogg, Jesse Jackson, all the usual suspects."

Funny choice of phrase, that. Are they "all the usual suspects" because they are black? Or because they are liberal? Not knowing Snoop's political views myself, I can only surmise it's because they're black, and belong in a lineup, that Reinhard calls them "all the usual suspects."

But then he rises to the defense of three Taiwanese victims of Williams at the end of his column, and the nine children and ten grandchildren left between them.

When, in Reinhard's career, has he ever stuck up for poor immigrants? When has he ever given a damn about anyone that is not rich, white and Republican?

Now is one of those times. So let's look at his new, altruistic motives: he is taking up the cause of the victims because he wants to see an imprisoned man die.

Vengeance, plain and simple. Williams' life spent in prison is not enough. His redemption, and his work on numerous anti-gang books over the last decades, is not enough. His pioneering of anti-gang programs for youth, orchestrated from jail, is not enough.

Reinhard wants this man dead.

No matter what the murderer does after the crime, there is no chance for forgiveness, Reinhard implies. How very...non-Christian of him.

Why does he devote an entire column to calling for the death of a human being? What kind of sick, sadistic man is Reinhard? The murderer is in prison for good. He has done good things while being in prison, even being nominated for Nobel Peace Prizes.

And still, Reinhard wants him to die.

Imprisonment is not enough. Redemption is not enough. He must DIE, he says.

Yes, he committed horrible crimes. Yes, his victims died unjustly. But this is no reason to increase his punishment beyond what is necessary.

Life imprisonment ensures he will not kill again. The streets are safe from Williams.

It is not enough, Reinhard says. He must DIE.

I seriously doubt Reinhard would have come out so vehemently for the death of a white man. Or a rich man. Does he fear the poor minorities of America so much that he wants to kill them one at a time on Death Row?