Remember those anti-health care reform “rallies” at which Mayor Pat McCrory was the main speaking attraction? They were organized by an outfit called Americans for Prosperity, a front group for various conservative corporate interests (NC GOP honcho Art Pope is on AFP’s board of directors). The group is headed by longtime GOP operative Tim Phillips. Last night on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow called out Phillips for his incredibly slimy career as a political hatchet man, during which he has done a passable imitation of the king of Republican hatchet men, the late Lee Atwater of South Carolina.
Maddow confronted Phillips, who still claims the lies told on McCrory’s “grassroots” anti-reform tour were gospel truth, about his various campaigns that have relied on lies and fear to mislead voters. Examples: it was Phillips who led the still-shocking campaign against former Sen. Max Cleland (D-GA), a triple amputee Vietnam veteran, in which Cleland was called a coward and a terrorist sympathizer. McCrory’s buddy also worked for a Jack Abramoff client to pressure Congress to vote against making the U.S.-owned Northern Mariana Islands subject to federal wage and worker safety laws — despite the fact that Chinese workers there were being forced into prostitution and mandatory abortions. And that’s not half of it.
Watch the Rachel Maddow interview with Phillips and see what kind of guy McCrory has been aligning himself with. You may particularly like the part where Maddow tells Phillips he’s “a parasite who gets fat on Americans’ fears.”
Deliver Us From Weasels, a collection of 50 of John Grooms’ best columns and articles, will be published in November by Main Street Rag Press. The book will cost $14.95, but can be purchased in advance through Oct. 26 for $10 including shipping at www.mainstreetrag.com/store/ComingSoon.php
This article appears in Oct 13-20, 2009.
Frank Griffin:
Dude, you’re out of your (right-wing extremist) mind if you actually think that that weasely Tim Phillips got the better of Rachel Maddow in their exchange. You’re apparently easily impressed by rote rhetorical devices that mask an obvious (and understandable) unwillingness to engage in an HONEST exchange of ideas.
I e-mail some of the state HQ of the AFP and a Mr. Schwartz emailed back threatening me by compllaining to my internet company. They have this website with their e-mail addressed and they don’t want All of American’s opinions? I think they are relly fooling those morons who do not want to lower their insurance premiums even though they are paying for everybody in the govenment’s health insurance and over paid salaries.
Hey everybody. Sorry for all the mistakes but I am a sixty year old woman with bad eyesight (not an excuse) who forgot her glasses were on top of her head. I pity all those saps out there who are sending money to this the AFP organization when they are already getting paid by insurance companies.