Dissenting Redstaters: Bush Thinks You're Traitors

by Matt Stoller, Thu Feb 23, 2006 at 05:22:23 PM EST

Deputy defense secretary, Gordon England, called opponents of the port deal traitors today.

"If the furor over the port deal should go on, Mr. England said, it would give enemies of the United States aid and comfort: 'They want us to become distrustful, they want us to become paranoid and isolationist.'"

Republican voters, if you question the port deal, the administration thinks you're a traitor. That includes Jonah Goldberg, Representative Sue Myrick, Representative Marsha Blackburn, and the nice Redstate commenters who agreed with them, Tom Maguire, and Glenn Reynolds, among others.

I really hope that principled conservatives start to realize that there is a very unconservative set of threats coming from this administration, and that staying silent about this very unAmerican intimidation by the government is not conservative in the least.

Tags: Bush, Redstate (all tags)

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Re: Dissenting Redstaters: Bush Thinks You're Trai

What bullexcrement. Our reaction is to virtually revoke our Constitution and stop Ted Kennedy from using air travel by putting him (ant thousands of others) on no-fly lists. Then these people pop up in the corporate media machine to tell us that opposition to the sale of our sea ports to foreigners is aiding and comforting the enemy because "they want us to become paranoid and isolationist."

Bullexcrement.

by blues 2006-02-24 12:48AM | 0 recs

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Knee Jerk

The reaction to issue is a little over-blown. My prediction is that the deal will still go down.

by Classical Liberal 2006-02-24 03:28AM | 0 recs

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Re: Knee Jerk

There is no way this deal goes through. Hopefully it brings to light a bigger issue - that foreign companies are running our ports. Some things should be locally run, and this is one of them.

by Robert P 2006-02-24 03:30AM | 0 recs

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Re: Knee Jerk

it is over the top.

and worse .. it's just the same old thing, same crap that hasn't been working and still isn't working. i mean, it's the same "bush did something bad and we got full coverage" stuff. doesn't say a thing about what the dem party should do for the future, nothing about an agenda for change, nothing about a positive message ... just, bush and the repugs are bad, and here's what they did. and it loses it's strength everytime it's used ...

bush and repugs did 9/11 stuff wrong, they're bad
bush and repugs did afghans wrong, they're bad
bush and repugs did the UN wrong
bush and repugs did coalition of the willing wrong
bush and repugs did iraq wrong
bush and repugs did shock & awe wrong
bush and repugs did troop equipment wrong
bush and repugs did social security debate wrong
bush and repugs did drug coverage wrong
bush and repugs did economy wrong
bush and repugs did tax cuts wrong
bush and repugs did troop deployments wrong
bush and repugs did abu ghraib wrong
bush and repugs did guantanamo wrong
bush and repugs did blah blah blah wrong ...

thousands of things i can't even remember now wrong ...
and more recently ...

bush and repugs did katrina wrong
bush and repugs did port deal wrong
cheney did shooting his friend wrong

etc, etc, etc ...

tomorrow it'll be something else wrong ...

hell, between the repug'nican sites talking about bush all the time and the democrat sites talking about bush all the time, and the media talking about bush all the time ... there's not a single damn minute left to talk about what the democratic party can do for the american people! i don't think anybody has a single clue what the plan is, what dems plan to do, except for bitch about bush and repugs.

like they say, there's no such thing as bad press, and repugs are on top of the world. there's never been a bigger star than bush. doing a google search on "hate bush" yields 662,000 sites! hollywood stars must be green with envy he gets so much exposure.

too bad hating bush doesn't win elections, as the last election demonstrated so clearly.

i'm starting to think that nothing would make dems happier than to have another 4 or 8 years of repug rule to bitch and moan about ...

by Purple Foxglove 2006-02-24 07:39AM | 0 recs

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Re: Knee Jerk

With all due respect, Dear Purple Foxglove, what on earth does any of this have to do with the price of tea in China?

by peachkfc 2006-02-24 07:45AM | 0 recs

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Re: Dissenting Redstaters

Matt, it appears that any reference to Gordon England, including his quote, has been scrubbed from the NY Times story. Once again, trying to unring the rung bell?

by peachkfc 2006-02-24 04:51AM | 0 recs

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Re: Dissenting Redstaters: Bush Thinks You're Trai

I think the quote by England is somebody's little ha-ha. Absolutely nothing about his quote can be found anywhere on the internet.

by robman 2006-02-24 06:11AM | 0 recs

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Re: Dissenting Redstaters:

The quote can still be found in a Google news search with the quote: "If the furor over the port deal should go on, Mr. England said" - but the link has a different title now, and the quote is gone.

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&lr &rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-19,GGLD:en& q%22If%20the%20furor%20over%20the%20por t%20deal%20should%20go%20on%2C%20Mr.%20E ngland%20said%22&sa=N&tab=wn

by cs colo 2006-02-24 06:38AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

The full quote can still be found in this article at the San Francisco Chronicle:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2006/02/23/MNG89HDFTG8.DTL

and in this editorial at the Washington Post:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/cont ent/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022301949.h tml

by peachkfc 2006-02-24 07:39AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

Nope, not the full quote here: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2006/02/23/MNG89HDFTG8.DTL

And the WP link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/cont ent/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022301949.h tml

goes to this:
We are unable to locate the page you requested.
The page may have moved or may no longer be available

by cs colo 2006-02-24 07:53AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

Now the link to the SF Chronicle says the page cannot be found. This is pretty outrageous. When I posted these links, I had checked them not more than five minutes previously and they were both good links to exactly what I said was there. Obviously, everybody is scrubbing out Mr. England's outrageous remarks. I did not think to make screen shots of the pages, I can only hope somebody else did.

by peachkfc 2006-02-24 10:37AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

I searched my browser cache and found a link to the WaPo editorial. However, the link has been altered slightly (note the hyphen added between the "wp" and the "dyn" and the ditorial has been edited to "soften" England's remarks. Check this out:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/con tent/article/2006/02/23/AR2006022301949. html

As for the SF Chronicle, the article is actually still there, with at least part of the important quote. I'm not sure if it's been edited at all since yesterday. The link above (and now below) is correct, but make sure you get the whole link, copy and paste if necessary.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2006/02/23/MNG89HDFTG8.DTL

by peachkfc 2006-02-24 11:27AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

I had the whole link the first time (to the SF Gate), it just didn't bring in the whole "html link" when I pasted it again. But as you can see, England's quotes in this article are not what what "quoted" in this original post. The SF Gate article quotes him as saying:

"The Department of Defense review was not cursory or casual,'' said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. At the Pentagon alone, England said, 17 agencies participated.

He also praised the United Arab Emirates as a valuable ally in the war on terror. Its ports are heavily used by Navy ships and it's a popular spot on leave for U.S. personnel.

"The terrorists want us to become distrustful, paranoid and isolationist. In my opinion we cannot allow that to happen,'' England said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2006/02/23/MNG89HDFTG8.DTL

Listen, I'd LOVE to find an article quoting him as saying what is quoted on this post. But they're all gone!

by cs colo 2006-02-24 02:55PM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

"The Department of Defense review was not cursory or casual,'' said Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England. At the Pentagon alone, England said, 17 agencies participated.

He also praised the United Arab Emirates as a valuable ally in the war on terror. Its ports are heavily used by Navy ships and it's a popular spot on leave for U.S. personnel.

"The terrorists want us to become distrustful, paranoid and isolationist. In my opinion we cannot allow that to happen,'' England said.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f= /c/a/2006/02/23/MNG89HDFTG8.DTL

Listen, I'd LOVE to find an article quoting him as saying what is quoted on this post. But they're all gone!

by cs colo 2006-02-24 02:56PM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

I know, it's really creepy. I've sent e-mails to both Digby and John Aravosis with this info and am hoping one or both of them will follow up on this (maybe you guys here at myDD too?) Joe at Americablog had another incident of a disappearing WaPo article, too, check this out:
http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/ wheres-washington-post-article-with.html

This is really getting out of hand.

by peachkfc 2006-02-25 06:54AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

And by the way, you should all check out Digby and, even better, John Aravosis for what they have to say about Mr. England. It should brighten your day.

by peachkfc 2006-02-24 07:48AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

Sorry, here are the links:

http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/02/ i-really-need-to-weigh-in-on-this.html

http://www.digbysblog.blogspot.com/2006_ 02_19_digbysblog_archive.html#1140742749 75238922

by peachkfc 2006-02-24 07:57AM | 0 recs

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Re: England Quote

Both those "blogger post" links either point back to this post, or point to the scrubbed NY Times article that no longer has the quote itself (or the same title).

by cs colo 2006-02-24 08:02AM | 0 recs

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Re: Dissenting Redstaters: Bush Thinks...

"principled conservatives"

Hee.

by Kimmitt 2006-02-24 08:11AM | 0 recs

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Dissenting Redstaters: Traitors

I don't know about this - with soooo many Republican volunteers to be the next person shot in the face by Cheney I have come to believe that Rethuglican leaders are all masochists who would love to be fellated, uh, excuse me, flagellated by Bush.

by Bill Arnett 2006-02-24 11:45AM | 0 recs