“Delaware Joe and the Dial of Doom”
Republicans successfully shot down John Kerry and Hillary Clinton with smear campaigns. Now Joe Biden is in their crosshairs.
Remember “Swiftboating”? It stems from the 2004 GOP political smear campaign against Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry in which Republicans spread the false allegation that Kerry fabricated aspects of his Vietnam War experience which won him two Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. Republicans threw the proverbial kitchen sink at Kerry, flooding the media zone with torrents of bullshit and lies. And it worked. Their fairy tales gained traction. Enough gullible voters swallowed it and the rest, as they say, is history: the U.S. intervention in Iraq went on for another seven years. Carrying forth the Republicans’ penchant for lies, the Bush administration made more than 900 false statements in a two-year period about Iraq’s alleged threat against the United States, thus, justifying the invasion.
Remember the “Benghazi Investigation”? Six investigations by five congressional committees over two years costing $7 million and countless hours of grilling Hillary Clinton yielded zero evidence of the scandal, lies and cover-ups alleged by Republicans and their chief inquisitor, Congressman Trey Gowdy, who is a spitting image of a Dark Ages Torquemada. No sweat. Presidential aspirant Hillary Clinton’s reputation was damaged. Mission accomplished. And then we endured 30,573 recorded lies over four years by the most corrupt president in U.S. history — again, carrying on with a rich and putrid modern history of one party’s mendacity.
With this tried and true tradition, the Republicans are now gearing up their smear machine to target Joe Biden. I imagine the GOP boiler room of hack writers turned in the following script outline for what might be titled, “Delaware Joe and the Dial of Doom,” starring Jim Caviezel —
ACT ONE
A fearless unnamed Ukrainian patriot courageously tells the FBI that Burisma boss Mykola Zlochevsky boasted that he had made multiple payments to Hunter and Joe Biden, backed up by 17 recordings. The American people are outraged and demand “accountability.” Noble and selfless GOP leaders respond with an impeachment investigation.
ACT TWO
Kevin McCarthy, backed by an unstoppable vanguard of House Republicans, including Marjorie Taylor Green, Lauren Boebert, Matt Gaetz and Jim Jordan, tear the lying Dems to pieces in an impeachment trial resulting in Joe Biden’s conviction and removal from office. Hunter gets a lengthy prison term.
ACT THREE
2024: Trump wins the presidency in a landslide. The GOP makes a clean sweep of the Senate and House. Democratic governors are booted out. Clarence Thomas goes big game hunting openly with Harlan Crow. MAGA goes full steam ahead. Hurrah! Slavery was good. Women are back in the kitchen and the delivery room. Science is dead. The Libs are finally “owned” and locked away in Putin-imported “filtration camps.” Borders are closed. Make America White Again!
THE END
What’s keeping congressional Republicans from realizing this scenario, however, is a pesky little thing called facts. “The only thing missing is direct evidence that Joe Biden knew and participated in these bribery schemes,” Paul Gosar, Arizona’s proud contribution to the world of untreated mental illness, admitted before a session of the House Oversight Committee last week.
But, again, no worries. They’ll just make stuff up and keep throwing it against the wall until something sticks, then run with it like nobody’s business. The director of “Delaware Joe and the Dial of Doom,” of course, is none other than Donald Trump himself. He’s already directed his Republimunchkins to 1) “expunge” his two impeachments; 2) conjure up a “Biden Crime Family”; and 3) actually impeach Joe Biden.
The game plan here is classic Trump: deflect and project. Turn the tables on the opposition. Accuse them of the crimes he’s committed. Kick up clouds of fairy dust to confuse and confound voters.
As the New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg explains,
Since the Republican aim is getting revenge and sowing confusion, not actually proving high crimes and misdemeanors, they may be able to use the obscurity of the allegations — and the need to plunge down various rabbit holes to understand them — to their advantage. Rather than make a specific case, Republicans are trying to foment the cynical sense that scandal surrounds Biden just as it does Trump. The point is not to hold anyone accountable for actual wrongdoing but to parody the process of trying.
It worked against Kerry and Clinton. Now it’s Biden’s turn. Unless the Democrats exchange their kid gloves for brass knuckles. For this kind of dirty war needs to be countered with equal force.
Or, as a character in the movie said: “Give ‘em hell, Indiana Jones!”