Heads up - When "they" start stories about Al Gore's personal carbon footprint

will all the jackals (both left and right)descend and disembowel him too, like they have Edwards?

By "they" I mean the crafty RightWing who have effectively played us like a violin for years.

The rightwingers have effectively for a long time had a tactic where they take someone's greatest strength and turn it into their greatest weakness. Virtue transformed into vice.

With John Kerry they took his war hero status and somehow made him not worthy of his medals.

With Edwards they have just orchestrated an attack on the biggest voice for poverty by making him "impure" and not "humble" enough in his own lifestyle. HYPOCRITE! the boards shout and so they silence the strongest advocate the poor have.

If Clark gained traction they would find him to be a "failed" General despite his track record.

I am as sure as I can be that the next step will be to caricature Al Gore as a carbon hog.

Now, will you recognize this when it happens? Will we collectively be able to refrain from bringing out our most strident, judgmental hysterical voices that will cry about his personal betrayal of the planet and how we must now scorn him as a leader?

Will you be able to tell when you are being manipulated?

Over the last year several Republicans I know--people who don't, by the way, approve of Bush--have said they would consider voting for a Dem but not for Gore because they think he's a hypocrite.

I'm not sure how truthful they're being about maybe voting Dem, though.

I would like to know how to counter it. The people I spoke with mentioned the size of his house.

Edited for spelling.

I was just using Al as an example of a very effective tactive that is often used to sew disunity among liberals as well as conservatives. I just get so tired of seeing us fall into these very easy to see traps.

I am not calling everyone who fell into this a "freeper". I just think we were all wasting a lot of time and energy talking about a complete non-issue while there was so much more happening of greater import. I'm not trying to stifle discussion. I am just asking that we might be a little more aware of some of the dynamics that create "issues" where there are none.

There are several reasons why this generated a LOT of posting on DU:

1) This has raised some very interesting points around wealth and class and the environmental impacts of our lifestyle on the environment. See the most recent posting in my journal for a LONG post I wrote about this. If someone bothers to look a little bit beyond the knee-jerk "Edwards' house is is own business" v. "Edwards is destroying the planet" which both sides are have been doing, there actually are some very interesting issues there on both sides which are worth talking about.

2) It has planted a bit of doubt in my mind about Edwards' political savvy. Um, hello, national figure running for President, you don't think they're going to use everything they got against you? Maybe it's not the power call to make this move at this time, especially when your platform is "poverty," the whole "two Americas" thing he's got going on.

Um, dang, I had a third reason but I've forgotten it.

because I have some disagreements with certain Democratic candidates, and because I have a legitimate concern for the environment and, no, I am not a big fan of Edwards' House. I am also a longtime member in good standing of DU and a precinct chair. It's pretty stupid when all dissent on this board gets characterized as a silent invasion of Freepers. Sometimes a disagreement is just a disagreement. Take off your tinfoilhat, it's cutting off the air to your brain.

A la Cheney & Hilary (there's a pair for you).

When they criticized Hilary for the joke the other day, she said basically, "lighten up". NOTE: don't take things seriously that aren't. There is a commonly used word to indicate "bullshit!" and it's time the Dems started trotting it out. The word? "Bullshit!"

When Wolf asked Cheney about his absurdly hypocritical Political stance on gay marriage, he answered, basically, How dare you! That question is out of line! Note: Set boundaries.

Now Wolf has no street cred, because any 16 year would have answered with Oh, yes it is! or Why the hell not?.

Given the current level of discourse, I believe these suggestions would raise the communication bar.

Clark = war criminal
I've already seen that here.

Like right now.

John Edwards OWNS the fucking house sitting in a clear cut. John Kerry's military history was LIED about by the right wing. It was false. John Edwards' miserable fucking monument to wealth and privilege and waste is real. He did it to himself and now for the next year and a half he will be justifying his own idiotic decision. And he should have to justify it. He's running for the Democratic nomination for president of the country, for Christ's sake.

It is TRUE. He was arrogant enough to think nobody was going to question him or try to swift boat him. It does not work that way. If he's as smart as he thinks he is, he should have known this is a public relations disaster for his campaign. He should not have handed the right wing this weapon.

Please stop with these useless threads. You will not be able to manipulate the primary race by trying to shut off discourse here at DU. It will not happen.

I will defend John Edwards any day if he's lied about and if he ends up running against a Republican, collectively or otherwise. Let me know when either of those two things happens.