Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Look Back at Anger (Why the "vast left-wing conspiracy" failed to unseat President Bush)
Wall Street Journal ^ | Tuesday, April 5, 2005 | JACOB LAKSIN

Posted on 04/05/2005 9:16:25 PM PDT by presidio9

It was several months before Election Day. George W. Bush and John Kerry had pulled to a statistical dead heat, and the pundits were poring over the polls in an effort to divine the reasons for the latest shift in public opinion. But MoveOn.org had more pressing concerns. It was moved to ask its network of true believers: "Why aren't we talking about a landslide in November?"

Such groundless conviction "was not at all unusual in the world of MoveOn," writes Byron York in "The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy." The triumphalism flowed, he notes, from a deceptively simple rationale. Feeling a passionate contempt for the president and his policies, the MoveOn rank-and-file labored under the illusion that they represented the majority of the American people.

They weren't the only ones. In the months following the 9/11 attacks, there emerged an activist movement of left-wing loyalists, Democratic operatives and deep-pocketed financiers all united under one aim--to defeat President Bush--and all confident that history was turning in their direction. Mr. York, the White House correspondent for National Review, gives us an engaging account of the partisan passions that made this "the biggest, richest, and best organized movement in American political history" and that ultimately proved its undoing.

All the usual suspects are here: Bush-bashing billionaire George Soros; politicos like Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean; squadrons of Democratic strategists and spin-men; left-wing luminaries like Michael Moore and Al Franken. There are new players, too, like the so-called 527s, ostensibly nonpartisan lobbying groups that massaged campaign-finance laws in the service of the Democratic cause. (The Republicans had their versions, too, of course.) Mr. York even takes us inside the brain trust of the anti-Bush network, the new Center for American Progress. "Our goal is to win," announces John Podesta, the center's founder and head.

(Excerpt) Read more at opinionjournal.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bushbashers; election2004; georgesoros; leftwingconspiracy; moveonorg
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-26 last
To: spetznaz

I'm with you. Hillary will be much better than Kerry, but she has huge baggage, and it ain't just her thighs.


21 posted on 04/06/2005 4:35:23 AM PDT by LS (CNN is the Amtrak of news)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

guess it's too much to hope that hillary will try to throw a football . . . or is she being coached on that, too?


22 posted on 04/06/2005 5:50:56 AM PDT by cyn (it's sarcasm, but jim king really said it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

Comment #23 Removed by Moderator

To: Attention Surplus Disorder
Kerry was lackluster personified

He was Dukakis with a lot more money, a lot more arrogance, and a lot less charisma.

24 posted on 04/06/2005 6:07:59 AM PDT by Sicon
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 8 | View Replies]

To: Baynative

funny you should mention fraud >> http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1378288/posts

it's these 'little' things', the 'little foxes', that add up to the later big awful thing, as I've recently seen. the seemingly little things must be opposed all along to ensure victory in the end.


25 posted on 04/06/2005 6:12:39 AM PDT by cyn (it's sarcasm, but jim king really said it.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

Comment #26 Removed by Moderator


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-26 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson