Forward, ho!
Do be sure to take the time to thank the fine, fine folks at Move America Forward, purveyors of astroturf since sometime earlier this month: without their hype and handwringing, it’s doubtful Fahrenheit 9/11 would have done nearly so well as it did. Aces, guys! Couldn’t have done it without you!
So. What to do for an encore?
Well, for one thing, team up with jilted Disney to promote a feelgood counterdoc: America’s Heart & Soul, “featuring an original song by John Mellencamp.” —“One of the most inspired and inspiring movies ever made,” says Jim Svejda, a graduate of the Pat Collins school of film criticism. Oh, but I’m being cynical again: America’s Heart & Soul looks like nothing more sinister than a thoroughly inoffensive dollop of feelgood pap: a long-form Chevy truck commerical; a tossed salad of mostly iceberg lettuce with a little cilantro to jazz it up. And I’m sure Svejda is a nice-enough guy. It’s Move America Forward’s puffery that’s a hoot and a half:
Those who oppose the War on Terror have the mouthpiece of the mainstream media to disseminate their propaganda to the entire nation in an almost unchallenged effort. Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week it is bash America, bash the military and bash the Bush administration.
So, of course, the only option you have to get your scrappy but beleaguered point of view across in this rigged marketplace of ideas is to team up with the parent corporation of one of the Big Four broadcast networks.
Move America Forward is also (quite) proud that it continues in the footsteps of McCarthy and Birch by hounding and harrassing a scientist guilty of nothing but being the target of an hysterical government lynch mob.
Once you’ve hit the news in a negative light, it’ll stay with you forever, no matter what happens to the contrary. Even if a federal judge in a court of law apologizes to you on behalf of the government.
Witness the strange dust-up in the state Capitol these past several days after a former legislator, Howard Kaloogian, got wind that a group of Asian-American legislators were getting ready to honor Wen Ho Lee with their first ``Profile in Courage’’ award Monday.
Kaloogian took umbrage that “a former accused spy’’ was being honored by “Democratic leaders’’ and shot off e-mails on behalf of his newly formed “Move America Forward’’ organization. The group was launched last week to rally support for the administration’s war against terrorism. He accused the California Asian Pacific Islander Legislative Caucus of violating its oath to “defend against foreign and domestic enemies.’’
Lee, you may remember, was the Los Alamos scientist fingered by the Clinton administration in 1999 for supposedly leaking key nuclear secrets to the Chinese government. He was fired, his name was leaked to the New York Times and the spy case was all over the news. He spent nine months in prison, shackled in leg irons, as the government’s case slowly came apart. Fifty-eight of the 59 original counts—none of them espionage—were dropped and Lee pleaded guilty to a single charge of mishandling nuclear secrets.
Federal District Court Judge James A. Parker took the unusual step of apologizing to Lee and excoriating the executive branch for bringing its enormous power to bear on a case it mishandled: “They have embarrassed our entire nation and each of us who is a citizen of it.’’
That was four years ago. Sad case, upended lives, a career ruined. But settled. Really.
The Asian Pacific Islander caucus, which is holding a policy summit with community leaders from around the state, chose to honor Lee because of his perseverance in the ordeal and the way he had galvanized Chinese-Americans and Asian-American civil rights groups.
As part of the honor, the caucus planned a legislative resolution, along with a routine five-minute presentation on the Assembly floor, a courtesy routinely extended on a legislator’s request.
Republican legislators, nonetheless, threatened to oppose the resolution. The caucus canceled plans for the Assembly presentation and moved it to Monday’s dinner.
Class act, these folks. —Hey, Kaloogian? Go fuck yourself, would you?
(By golly, I do feel better!)
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