corrente

The hot rumor in New York political circles has Roger Stone, the longtime GOP activist, as the source for Dan Rather's dubious Texas Air National Guard "memos." - (NYPost) See below





Pat Buchanan's secret "love child"; and other slimy tales squirming in the Bush family ooze.

Stone told Von Raab that his Buchanan maneuvers were a "tactical exercise"—an accurate description of his ironic orchestration of Al Sharpton's campaign this year. The master of convoluted chaos, double agent Stone has left his mark in the dark alleys of presidential politics since Watergate, but the sacking of the Reform Party may be his lasting legacy.

[...]

"Everyone who worked for Nixon knew about" the alleged Buchanan baby, says Stone, adding that he "lived with it through two Reagan campaigns." Stone and Buchanan were aides to Nixon and Reagan, and Stone, also a Bush I campaign veteran, was rewarded for his subterranean 2000 efforts with an appointment to the Department of Interior transition team, which he parlayed into a multimillion dollar business as an Indian gaming consultant (see Voice, April 19).

The Stone-inspired Reform infighting served multiple Bush interests: It killed any possibility of a third Perot run, blocked the candidacy of former Connecticut governor Lowell Weicker, and forced out the party's only elected official, Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura. Buchanan's vanishing act—after Stone cajoled him to run Reform—left nearly a dozen party leaders contacted by the Voice convinced that he and Stone were conscious agents of doom. (more...)

READ: How GOP operative Roger Stone destroyed the Reform Party in the 2000 presidential campaign - The Sex Scandal That Put Bush in the White House - by Wayne Barrett with special reporting by Jessie Singer - May 18th, 2004 - Much more... via the Village Voice (Long Article)

Fear and Sneer and Florida Fixers:

In 1992, W. famously offered his services to his father's moribund re-election campaign. The younger Bush counseled the president to hire private investigators to rummage through the bedtrails of Clinton's sex life, hoping to ignite "bimbo eruptions." This advice coming from a man who, according to one of his friends, spent the 1970s "sleeping with every bimbo in West Texas, married or not."

[...]

Then, with the recount underway, the Bush junta sprang into action. Using $13.8 million in campaign funds, they recuited an A-list of Republican fixers, tough guys and lawyers. Roger Stone, the former Republican fixer and body builder of Reagan time who fled to Florida following a DC sex scandal, was summoned to orchestrate gangs of rightwing Cubans to harass election officials in Dade and Palm Beach counties. Marc Racicot, later to be elevated by Bush to chair of the RNC, staged similar white-collar riots, all designed to impede the counting of ballots. Jeb and the haughty Harris did their parts as institutional monkeywrenchers.

Meanwhile, the legal strategy designed by Theodore Olson to fast track the case to the Supreme Court. When Scalia and Thomas refused to recuse themselves from the case despite glaring conflicts of interest (family members worked for the Bush campaign), the electoral theft was legitimized.

The ringmaster of this affair was Bush Sr.'s old hand, James Baker. Baker later boasted to a group of Russian tycoons mustered in London, "I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush." (more...)

READ: High Plains Grifter; The Life and Crimes of George W. Bush, - by Jeffery St. Clair, Sept. 01, 2004 - Counterpunch

Digby has more on Stone.

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Bunkhouse buddies:

[Donald Rumsfeld] "Co-Owns New Mexico Ranch with Dan Rather, among others:..." ~ Sunday, Dec. 21, 2003 Time Magazine

Ooooo, that gawd derned libr'l media!

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