Mercury Rising

Got this in my e-mail today from the fine folks over at American Politics Journal:

As you may already know, Bush is bringing back advisers to the old "Swift Boat" liars that scuttled Kerry's campaign to go after AARP -- even though AARP helped Bush last year when he needed his Medicare plan passed! We can use this to our advantage, so long as we act now. If we act now, our letters will set the tone -- and turn back their attacks before they start them. Rapid Response is why Bush is being forced to go to these people in the first place: he never expected to face any major opposition to his privatization plan, and he'd expected it to be signed into law by now! But we beat them to the punch -- and framed the debate before they could. As fans of George Lakoff know, once a frame is set in the public mind, it takes a lot more effort to undo it than it did to plant it. The essential message to your local newspaper and your elected representatives should spell out this point: • George W. Bush is so determined to push through his failed privatization plan that he's sending out the same people who slimed John Kerry with lies and smears last year to do the very same thing now to the AARP -- even though AARP backed his Medicare card plan last year. There are variants that work well with people who follow national politics closely, naming names: • Bush has become so desperate to bring his unpopular privatization plan back from the dead that he's brought back the folks who worked with proven liars and smear artists Jerome Corsi and John O'Neill to do his dirty work for him. If you can dream up some frames of your own, please share them with us (send them to editors@apj.us; we'll pass 'em on). And back up your words with sources. Here are a few links to use that demonstrate the untrustworthiness of the so-called "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" [sic] -- this gives newspapers the facts to that back your letter, and political staffers will also find these links useful. Right wingers can lie and try to get away with with it, and we know we are better than that: http://mediamatters.org/items/search/200408250002 (this one collects most of the lies) http://mediamatters.org/items/topic/200408060010 http://mediamatters.org/items/topic/200408120005 http://mediamatters.org/items/topic/200409150006 http://mediamatters.org/items/search/200410260001 http://mediamatters.org/items/search/200409160004 http://mediamatters.org/items/search/200408250004 You can contact your congresscritter using the search engine at http://www.house.gov/writerep/ and you can look up your senators' email addresses at http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm You can find local and regional newspapers using the search engine at http://www.newspapers.com/search.htm You can track down state and local political organizations starting with the state links at http://upload.democraticunderground.com/links/pages/State_and_Local/ Surf's up -- have fun!

# posted by Phoenix Woman @ 2/21/2005 03:06:00 PM