There are myriad groups, many nothing more than names and post box addresses, purporting to be the protectors of America. By that they mean protecting the political powers of President Bush and his cloister of cronies currently running rough-shod over the Constitution and international law. Whenever these latter day Knights Templar sniff any opposition to the whims of the Bushists, they put into action a pre-packaged media blitz effort that amounts to little more than a coordinated smear campaign. And they're at it again, rallying to the defense of Bush's choice of John Bolton as America's Number One at the United Nations. - {ape}
Kaloogian’s Hooligans Battle for Bolton Appointment
Kurt Nimmo
April 30, 2005
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.
jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=8340022
Not Nuts for Bolton
For some unexplained reason, I keep getting email from Howard Kaloogian’s Move America Forward. I wrote about Kaloogian last June, when he was attempting to prevent Americans from going to see Michael Moore’s documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, an effort that was pretty much a dismal failure. Kaloogian’s latest effort is to attack those who believe the appointment of John Bolton to the United Nations is not a good idea, considering not only Bolton’s predisposition to attack the international forum but also his tendency to go after those who disagree with his extremist take on international affairs in bully-boy fashion (including chasing them around hotels).
“We’ve had enough of the ‘Smear John Bolton’ campaign led by liberals Barbar Boxer and John Kerry,” Kaloogian writes in his latest spam. “Our new ad redirects the the discussion back on the failures of the UN. More importantly, we’re setting a new standard in these confirmation fights by highlighting the credibility issues that undermine Bolton’s highest profile critics Melody Townsel (active with Mothers Opposing Bush) and Carl Ford (campaign contributor to several liberal Democrats including Senator John Kerry).”
In short, Kaloogian is up to his old tricks, smearing people who disagree with the Bolton appointment. Kaloogian wants the faithful to send him $140,000, so he can run TV ads targeting Democrat Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, “just like we did with Senator Voinovich [an Ohio Republican] when he expressed doubts about Bolton.” Disagreement and reservations about appointing a bully who engages in personal vendettas against those who have the gall to disagree with him, according to Kaloogian, is flat out treason.
Last week Voinovich “shocked” the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, according to the right-wing New York Sun, when he told them he was not “comfortable voting for John Bolton.” Radio ads smearing Voinovich as “disloyal” to Bush, a “traitor,” and portraying Bolton as “someone who will stand up for the United States and fight the UN’s corruption and anti-Americanism” suddenly appeared on Ohio’s radio spectrum. “Move America Forward has spent tens of thousands of dollars airing radio ads throughout the state of Ohio on more than one-dozen news/talk radio stations,” Kaloogian, who lives in California, proudly admitted. “According to media reports and sources on Capitol Hill, Senator Voinovich’s office was inundated with phone calls, FAXes and emails.”
Organizations such as Move America Forward (into fascism) call this sort of organized harassment “grassroots activism” and it is a favorite tactic for other right-wingers as well. “Within a couple of hours of Voinovich’s action Tuesday, Move America Forward announced on its Web site and in faxes to news organizations that it would target Voinovich for his ‘obstructionist conduct.’ On Thursday, the day the ads began running, Voinovich’s office phones were jammed with callers and computer e-mail in-baskets were clogged with messages related to the Bolton confirmation.” According to Kaloogian, this orchestrated intimidation worked because Move America Forward (into fascism) “received reassurances from very reliable sources that Senator Voinovich has obtained a new and fair outlook on the Bolton nomination.” In other words, Voinovich caved.
Howard Kaloogian, who at one time was a Republican member of the California State Assembly—that is until the people of California had enough of his extreme right-wing nonsense and pitched him—is remarkably tireless in his efforts to smear and malign anybody who disagrees with the far right-wing authoritarian fanatics in the Bush administration and their fellow travelers in Congress.
For instance, Kaloogian went on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country (not surprisingly a right-wing venue) last June and said “Hezbollah … is supportive of this [Moore’s] movie. Now if you’re [Moore] lining yourself up with Hezbollah, then you’re the domestic enemy.” (See Scarborough Country guest Kaloogian accused Moore of “lining [him]self up with Hezbollah.”) In other words, Michael Moore, who is hardly a far left radical (he is a chic Hollywood liberal), is a traitor because somebody in the United Arab Emirates ran his picture and we know how the right in the United States want to treat those they perceive as traitors (for reference, consult Bob Newman, far right-wing radio talk show host in Colorado, who wants to charge Ward Churchill with treason, although he says that he does not “want Churchill hanged” because that “would be ruining a perfectly good rope").
A simple Google search reveals that Kaloogian has a penchant for rubbing elbows with “useful idiots” such as “wealthy car-alarm magnate” Rep. Darrell Issa and working with “a stealthy group of GOP operatives,” as he did during the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis (Kaloogian was chairman of the Recall Gray Davis Committee), according to Max Blumenthal’s California Confidential. Kaloogian’s hooligans, including a former Enron pollster and various shifty Republican tacticians, specialized in “negative character attacks and avoidance of policy discussion,” a staple of right-wingers high and particularly low.
I have personal experience with this sort of unethical behavior, as David Horowitz and his attack dog, Steve Plaut, used precisely this sort of “negative character attack” against me on several occasions, especially after I responded to Plaut’s characterization of Counterpunch as a den of “Cockburn’s cockroaches.” Horowitz and Plaut were simply sharpening their knives on me, since I am essentially a small fry blogger, and usually save their immense reservoirs of venom for more high profile targets, such as Ward Churchill.
Kaloogian is short on fact and long on preposterous accusation, as fits the smear template of the far right. “Two of the most recent MAF [Move America Forward] initiatives are strategically and tactically linked: to move the United Nations headquarters out of the United States and to support John Bolton as the U.S. Representative to the United Nations,” notes Right Web. MAF regards Bolton
as one of the few U.S. diplomats who can “stand up to the ‘Blame America First’ crowd at the United Nations.” In one of its television ads, MAF highlights Kofi Annan’s purported “close association” with Yasser Arafat, Saddam Hussein, and Fidel Castro, while in the same alarmist tone labeling the UN as a “corrupt, anti-American body.” Even though the UN Secretary General was absolved of any involvement in the Oil for Food scandal, MAF has continued to vilify this leader, implying that the UN supports terrorism. The MAF website features an image characteristic of boxing matches with photos of Bolton and Annan in opposing corners.
According to MAF, the United Nations is an “apologist and defender of terrorist organizations and their agents.” In one of its television ads, MAF says that the United States should no longer “harbor” the UN, and that we should begin “kicking the UN out of the United States” as a necessary step “to move America forward.”
Note that MAF and Kaloogian attempt to gain the most political mileage through unsubstantiated lies and insinuation—standard fare for fanatical and amoral right-wingers who will do anything to foist their authoritarian version of lock-step patriotism on the American people and go after their enemies with a curdled nastiness unparalleled in American history. As in the case of Horowitz and Crew, there is plenty of documentation to suggest a small number of rich people are funding this effort (see the Media Transparency entry on David Horowitz).
Kaloogian’s spam offers a URL where I can unsubscribe, but I don’t think I will because his emails are so darn entertaining, filled with paranoia and right-wing gibberish about commies and Muslims. It’s a good way to keep up on the vicious machinations of the far right as they plod along, begging for money like slippery television preachers, and plotting against the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
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