Thursday, October 19, 2006

Willing to say anything to get elected.

Well, I guess if you are behind in the polls, the Big Lie is in order. At least that seems to be the case for our Congressman, Rick Renzi, who was four points down to Ellen Simon in a recent poll.

Renzi is running an ad in which he says that "Simon was the President of the ACLU, an organization which defends the North American Man-Boy Love Association."

Well, at lest the second half of that is right. Sort of. The implication of course is that the ACLU supports the rights of the pedophiles to destroy children, when in fact the ACLU in their press release on the decision of their Massachusetts affiliate to represent members of NAMBLA in court says,

"In representing NAMBLA today, our Massachusetts affiliate does not advocate sexual relationships between adults and children.

What the ACLU does advocate is robust freedom of speech for everyone. The lawsuit involved here, were it to succeed, would strike at the heart of freedom of speech."


However these kinds of distortions are everywhere in political ads these days. However, the first half of Mr. Renzi's statement, saying that Ellen Simon was the President of the ACLU is flat out and demonstrably wrong. The President of the ACLU since 1991 has been Nadine Strossen (Incidentally, she is the first woman to ever head the organization). Strossen succeeded Norman Dorsen, who served as the President of the ACLU from 1976-1990. So the contention that Ellen Simon was 'the President of the ACLU' is a flat out, bald faced lie, and a very easy one to prove false with a few minutes and a search engine. She was involved with the ACLU in Ohio, being the President of their Cleveland affiliate, but of course an ACLU member in Ohio could not have been responsible for a decision made by a Massachusetts affiliate, so in order to complete his chain of spurious logic trying to paint her as a defender of pedophiles, he had to invent a new resume for her (which is interesting-- if she lied on her resume, it would be a major scandal. But if he lies on her resume, it's just politics as usual.) But if Rick Renzi is so concerned about defending pedophiles, I would only ask him whether he plans to vote for Dennis Hastert as speaker of the house, since the revelation that Congressman Reynolds told the speaker there might be a problem involving Mark Foley but Hastert chose to ignore it instead of dealing with it then.

Not that this is anything new for Renzi, either. In the 2002 campaign he ran ads claiming that George Cordova embezzled money from a business he was a partner in and then wired it out of the country to an uncle in Mexico. Of course if this were true then Cordova would have gone to prison for a long, long time. But he not only did not go to prison or have any charges filed against him, but he sued Renzi after that election for libel and settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of cash. You figure it out.

Heck, it isn't even the first big lie that Renzi has told this year. Earlier this year he claimed that he had been endorsed by former Navajo Nation President Albert Hale. Only it wasn't true. Hale, irked at the fake endorsement, publically asked Renzi for an apology and to retract the endorsement. Far from an apology, Renzi's response was to personally attack Hale and call him a 'convicted felon' (also a big lie). Hale, who had planned to pretty much sit this election out, immediately endorsed Ellen Simon.

One has to wonder why people keep voting for a guy who has now proven over and over and over again that he is willing to outright lie in order to get elected.

10 comments:

shrimplate said...

They're voting for the letter "R."

Zelph said...

Don't know if you can stream KPHX (Air America Phoenix), but I'll be doing a show about Renzi tommorow at 2:30 and borrowing heavily from your material.

Eli Blake said...

Unfortunately my computer lacks even a sound card, and I live a couple of hundred miles from Phoenix. I did travel through there today though (on some work related business).

But best of luck. And of course you're well aware of the first big lie that Renzi has told-- that he lives in Arizona.

I also recently posted a couple of other Renzi stories: Rick Renzi and ethics--an oxymoron when mentioned in the same line (about the Patty Roe scandal) and New Renzi scandal (about the Sandlin land swap deal)

Zelph said...

Yes, I found your earlier posts. Wikipedia also has a great, up-to-date article on Renzi.

I'm aware Renzi doesn't live in Arizona.

I'll give your blog an on air plug.

Eli Blake said...

Thanks.

Eli Blake said...

I did edit in one clarification. Simon was the President of the Cleveland affiliate of the ACLU. However that still would not in any way cause her to be in any way involved with a Massachusetts case, so Renzi is still guilty of telling a big lie (even if it was by omission) in order to claim she made the NAMBLA decision (though as an aside, I fully support the ACLU position on NAMBLA's right to free speech.)

Zelph said...

Thanks for the clarification! I used this on the air today. I thought it went pretty well. I mentioned your blog so I hope you get a bunch of hits.

You might be interested in this post from "Lofty Donkey".

Check out the entry at wikipedia.com on "Rick Renzi" if you haven't already. It's really well done.

shrimplate said...

I heard Zelph on-air, and I could tell from his preparation that you, Eli, were in the information background.

I am very proud of you both, as well as of Air America Phoenix, and its new incarnations.

Good job all around.

Renzi is a carpetbagger, bigtime. And a bad one at that.

Anonymous said...

What you miss is to be associated in any way, shape or form with people who advocate sexual relations with minors is to become absolutely vile in one's own right. Whatever good the ACLU has ever done has been tossed over the side because they are defending the indefensible - no reasonable reading of the First Amendment would say that advocating crime is protected speech.

And, of course, to be associated with a group that has debased itself in such a manner is something that the voters should look at as they make their choice.

Mark Noonan

Zelph said...

Chris Bowers has an interesting project going that is described here.

I don't think the article they selected for Renzi is particularly strong. If you can recommend a better one, let him or me know.

I'd go with the Wikipedia article on Renzi myself.