The usual morning information absorption starts with news (BBC, CNN to check in on Michael Jackson, NYT, O Globo) then meanders over to blogs (Bitch Ph.D., where I get bogged down with such goodness that I often don't make it any further). Then, if there is a car ride, local AM radio supplies the conservative side of things, Boortz, Rush, and if my stomach is feeling steady, Hannity.
A couple of weeks ago, in one of the conservative car phases, Boortz and his crew were very excited about catching a Florida newspaper printing two plagiarized (aka form) letters right next to each other. Supposedly it exposed the liberal bias, the ideological rigidity of liberals, and the stupidity of liberals in general. Never heard that before, right? Anyway, at the time I was thinking "what political organization of the right or left doesn't use form letters to reach the media? This is definitely pot and kettle territory." As often happens, composing blog posts that require research while driving is next to impossible, and I never got back around to finding some conservative letter generators.
Yesterday, Bitch, Ph.D. linked to a bit about how the GOP has a handy letter generator, which can be used to send five letters, using pre-written text, to five papers of your choosing.
[This is the moment, dear readers, where if you have ever played Age of Empires and created a Wonder and won the game, and heard the vocal chorus, and remember that chorus, you should imagine it for yourself. Either that or the phone ringing from In Like Flint, if it makes you happy.
So, I've revised the opinion - from the Boortz page linked above - about the semi-literate democrats who can't write letters for themselves. In the parody below I've edited in the words in italics to replace the original democrat-bashing. It's kind of in the whole cut-and-paste spirit of the thing, no?
Ahhhh. You picked up on it right away, didn't you? That's because you read lefty blogs!. That makes you just a bit brighter than the average letter writer who used the GOP generator. Yes ... using the generator might give him exactly the same wording as some other lazy citizen uses in his letter! You will notice, I'm sure, some minor alterations to mask the plagiarism, but the process here is clear. Now the home-school-educated typical Republican voter might tell you that he and his fellow lazy citizen just accidentally happened onto the same wording because they are kindred spirits in the effort to make the world safe for gutting social security! You will excuse us if we think otherwise, for the truth here is that both he and his lazy fellow citizen went to some website or to some email message they received, downloaded the basic text of their letters to the editor, and then made some superficial changes to create the illusion of an individual and independent effort! One can go just a bit further into the right's looneyism than the next person because he can add his feelings that continuing to support one of the most succesful programs in U.S. history is just like getting in bed with Uncle Joe Stalin unless we set up private accounts for social security. No matter. By the time we get beyond the script in the letter we won't be expecting cogent thought anyway.
Amazing! The right just loves to talk about we bloggers getting our talking points from MoveOn.org, and here is all the proof you need that Republicans who write letters to the editors of various newspapers aren't even able to express their own thoughts! They have to take some sort of a form letter provided to them by their Republican operatives .. and then they wrack their brains trying to personalize those letters by adding a word here, a word there, a quick accusation about blocking private accounts... and presto! Your own opinion printed in the pages of Your Local Paper?
Wouldn't it be fun to engage these Republicans in some sort of a debate while denying them access to their party-provided crib notes?
Come on users of the GOP website! Spill the beans! We want to know who told you what to write! Where did you get the basic template? And the most important question ----- are either one of you capable of forming a rational thought on your own?Posted by binky at July 23, 2005 10:36 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Politics