David Bossie

Bachmann Backers Play Victim Card in Wake of Backlash

It was only a matter of time before Michele Bachmann’s allies tried to play the victim following the backlash against her latest conspiratorial witch hunt, this time focusing on Muslim-Americans serving in the Obama administration. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, who helped launch the attacks on Sec. Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin and whose report Bachmann and four other Republican members cite in their letters to the inspectors general, spoke today with David Bossie of the right-wing group Citizens United to defend the witch hunt.

Bossie said that Bachmann’s main problem was naming Abedin in the State Department letter, which was rebuffed by the inspector general, when she should have tried to “name her without naming her.” He claimed that people are attacking Bachmann because she tries “to defend our freedoms” and represents a “danger” to their nefarious plans. Gaffney, who has made a career disparaging people like Abedin and even conservatives such as Grover Norquist, lamented that there is “an effort to demonize and take down” Bachmann.

Bossie: These five members of Congress led by Michele Bachmann, because they just hate her so, because they just have this natural desire to attack her at every turn because she’s decided to pick up a weapon and stand a post, she decided that she was going to defend our freedoms at every turn for many years. So certainly if I was in her camp, would I have said ‘hey let’s ask these questions, let’s do all this without putting a staffer’s name in it,’ because as a former staffer, as a guy who was the chief investigator for Congress during the ’90s and somebody who investigated the Clinton’s relentlessly and whose name was in letters like this all the time from the left, Republicans stood tall for me at every turn because members didn’t like members picking on staffers, at least how it’s presumed. So you could see how that could be perceived. I would have probably said, ‘let’s name her without naming her,’ that’s one way to solve what potentially happened.

But they want to attack Michele Bachmann for what is really an oversight in my opinion by naming her, but they want to attack her because she’s been a leader against the Muslim Brotherhood, against radical Islam, for the last four years that she has been in the House of Representatives and they see her as a danger, as a leader who is dangerous in their pursuits.

Gaffney: That’s the point. It’s really an effort to demonize and take down, if they can, a formidable political adversary in Michele Bachmann.

If Bachmann really was the courageous leader that Bossie and Gaffney described, it’s hard to see why she literally ran away from a CNN reporter who was asking her questions about the letters, and if people are only criticizing Bachmann because they detest her attempts to “defend our freedoms,” then leading Republicans like John McCain, Marco Rubio, John Boehner and Mike Rogers must be included on that list.

Bossie also took to Politico to defend the congresswoman and her Republican allies, saying they “should be applauded for their letter and be regarded as patriots”:

The inspectors general should absolutely investigate whether individuals with associations with the Muslim Brotherhood are contributing to the adoption of policies that favor an organization that poses a threat to national security. The Muslim Brotherhood is the driving force behind the effort to impose a totalitarian ideology it calls “shariah.” During the Obama presidency, the Brotherhood has made huge strides towards achieving its goal in the Middle East.

Unfortunately, as is made clear in their own documents – specifically a strategic plan introduced into evidence in the 2008 Holy Land Foundation trial, the largest terrorism financing prosecution in our nation’s history – the Muslim Brotherhood also has as its goal “destroying Western civilization from within.” This goal is being pursued via what the Brothers call a stealthy “civilization jihad” that involves, among other techniques, gaining access to and influencing government agencies.

It is not McCarthyism to state these irrefutable facts. Neither are requests by members of Congress seeking, through the appropriate formal channels, to establish whether the Muslim Brotherhood has gained a foothold and legitimacy – especially in light of the adoption of Brotherhood-friendly policies by the Obama Administration. These are absolutely legitimate and necessary questions because of the stakes for our national security.

Far from being criticized or suppressed by America’s elites and politically correct police, Reps. Bachmann, Gohmert, Franks, Westmoreland and Rooney should be applauded for their letter and be regarded as patriots.

Newt Gingrich Has The "Eye Of The Tiger"

In honor of the news that Newt Gingrich is going to announce his intention to run for president tomorrow, I just want to piggyback off our our earlier post to just take remind everyone of just how massive his ego already is.

Starting with his speech at the annual CPAC conference in 2009, Gingrich has made a habit of turning his mere entrance into a spectacle. While every other speaker during every other CPAC has entered the stage from the wings, Gingrich alone enters the room from behind and works his way, state-of-the-union-like, through the crowd as Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger" blast over the speaker system.

Note the very first video from 2009 where David Bossie looks off stage after introducing Gingrich, expecting him to enter from the wings as every other speaker had done, and questioningly throwing up his hands when he doesn't appear, only to see Gingrich emerge from the crowd moments later much to everyone's surprise:

And he proceeded to do the very same thing the next year:

And he did it once again this year:

Donnelly and Kincaid Keep Up “Draft” Drumbeat after Senate Passes DADT Repeal

After expressing hope that efforts to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would ultimately fail, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness (who, by the way, is not close to being an expert on the issue) told Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid that the draft is on its way once DADT is scrapped. According to Donnelly, the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “could put remaining troops in greater danger, and break the All-Volunteer Force.”

Donnelly joins other right wing activists like Tony Perkins, David Bossie, Frank Gaffney, and Bryan Fischer, in forecasting the return of conscription as a result of the repeal. In 2006, Donnelly also predicted that allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly will lead to “forcible sodomy,” “introducing erotic factors,” and the proliferation of “HIV positivity.”

Kincaid, though, held out hope that the incoming House Republican majority and Rep. Buck McKeon (R-CA), the designated Chair of the Armed Services Committee, would be able to block repeal:

McKeon had told reporters that he wanted to hold hearings that would include rank-and-file service members along with military leaders. “I would really like to hear from battlefield commanders,” McKeon said. “I would like to hear from battalion commanders, I would like to hear from company commanders on the front lines in Afghanistan and Iraq to see what their feelings are.”



So will Congress approve the changes, knowing that they could result in the return of the military draft?

As the Times indicates, the specific language of the bill is that the repeal must be “consistent with the standards of military readiness, military effectiveness, unit cohesion, and recruiting and retention of the Armed Forces.”

The burden is on the gay rights lobby to prove that the changes would have no negative effect on any of the above. How can they prove such a thing when the Pentagon has already concluded that the change is risky and faces opposition from as many as 60 percent of our combat troops?

But the Pentagon’s own “Comprehensive Review of the Issues Associated with the Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” found, “In the key areas of military readiness, unit effectiveness, and unit cohesion the risks were all deemed to be LOW” and that “the change in culture and environment in warfighting units will be minimal.” 69% of respondents already claimed to have knowingly served with a gay or lesbian soldier, and of them “92% stated that the unit’s ‘ability to work together’ was ‘very good,’ ‘good,’ or ‘neither good nor poor.’”

But Donnelly and Kincaid continue to discount and distort the clear evidence from the Pentagon's study that the repeal of DADT will have little effect at all on the military, and claim that unless Republicans belatedly block the repeal, a draft is imminent.

Déjà Vu At CPAC: President Gingrich Makes His Entrance

When I saw this Crooks and Liars video of Newt Gingrich's entrance to CPAC today, walking from the back of the auditorium to "Eye of the Tiger" while being mobbed by the audience, I thought C&L must have made some sort of mistake:

The reason I thought this was a mistake was because this is literally exactly the same thing he did last year, all the way down to the introduction from David Bossie of Citizens United:

No speaker at CPAC makes this sort of absurdly self-aggrandizing entrance ... except Gingrich, who has done it in two consecutive years.

Huckabee, Santorum, Corsi Show Up in New Anti-Obama DVD

The Associated Press reports that Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ken Blackwell, Jerome Corsi, and others all make an appearance in a new anti-Obama DVD produced by Citizens United that is set to be included with newspapers in swing states just before the election:

Readers of Ohio's three largest newspapers, along with papers in Florida and Nevada, are finding an anti-Barack Obama DVD in editions this week.

Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington, plans to release a 95-minute film in the five swing-state publications to highlight Obama's record on abortion rights, foreign policy and his past associations, including his relationship with former pastor Rev. Jermiah Wright. The group said it planned to spend more than $1 million to distribute about 1.25 million copies of "Hype: The Obama Effect."

"We think it's a truthful attack. People can take it anyway they want," said David Bossie, Citizens United's president.

Readers of The Columbus Dispatch received their copy Tuesday. The Cincinnati Enquirer, The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer, The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post and the Las Vegas Review-Journal are scheduled to receive them in coming days.

The film raises questions about Obama's political base in Chicago and questions the media's reporting on Obama.

Among those interviewed are conservative columnist Robert Novak, former Clinton strategist-turned-pundit Dick Morris and former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell. Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and discredited Obama critic Jerome Corsi also give interviews.

'Run, Newt, Run' (?!)

Gingrich in 'Second Life'

How finicky were the activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference? Romney, McCain, and Huckabee each bent over backwards to cater to the far-right sentiments of the audience, but the speaker who got the most “presidential” reception was Newt Gingrich.

 “Hillary and Obama talk about real change—Newt Gingrich delivers real change!” trumpeted David Bossie of Citizens United in introducing this “one-man think tank.” Bossie’s “only regret,” he said, was that Gingrich was not a candidate for president. (Bossie, incidentally, was forced out of his job investigating the Clinton Administration for House Republicans by then-Speaker Gingrich in 1998, but the two have apparently made up, working together on Gingrich’s “Rediscovering God” DVD.)

Rather than take the podium immediately, Gingrich spent about five minutes shaking hands with the cheering audience as bombastic march music blasted in the background. The only thing missing was a balloon drop.

“Run, Newt, run!” someone shouted. “Run for president!” cried another.

No, Newt Gingrich was not jumping in to save these poor right-wing activists from John McCain. (Sorry, Michael Reagan.) In fact, Gingrich said they have an “absolute requirement to support the Republican nominee this fall.” Instead, Gingrich played the role of a medicine-show man—telling the crowd they have a serious condition and he has just the elixir to cure what ails them.

“There is something big happening in this country,” said Gingrich ominously. “We don’t understand it. We’re not responding to it. And we’re currently not competitive.”

I want to suggest to you—and I’ve spent a lot of time since 1999 thinking about this, and it’s part of why I wrote the book “Real Change” and tried to lay out, at American Solutions, a fundamentally different approach to how we thinking about solving our problems—I think there are two great lessons for the conservative movement since 1980. The first, which we still haven’t come to grips with, is that governing is much harder than campaigning. Our consultants may be terrific at winning one election. They don’t know anything about governing. And unfortunately most of our candidates listen to our consultants. And so you end up with people who don’t understand briefing people who don’t know so that together they have no clue.

Gingrich is hardly the first to suggest that anti-government politicians might not be the best at running a government. Still, it’s a little counterintuitive to hear Gingrich railing against “consultants”—after all, he has spent the last year on the periphery of the presidential race, pushing the kind of futuristic hokum that would make any consultant envious.

Under the mind-bending motto “Real change requires real change,” Gingrich has promised dispirited Republicans access to “the world that works”—something like Fedex, but with more 3-D animation. And as he did at the Values Voter Summit, Gingrich passed out copies of his inane polling data (e.g., a majority of respondents said yes when asked whether “we must defeat America’s enemies”)—which he now calls “The Platform of the American People.” Throw in a flashy web site and I’d say he’s in business.

In the end, though, Gingrich’s “real change” was just more red meat for the Right. His first example of “real change” was for Republicans in Congress to razz the Democrats by holding a symbolic vote on English-only every week during the presidential race. Following this path, said Gingrich, “we will win one of the most cataclysmic elections in history” in November. Now, the Right has found anti-immigrant sentiment to be a powerful bludgeon in recent years, but it’s hardly been an electoral winner. Is this really the “world that works,” or one of Gingrich’s “alternate histories”?

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David Bossie Posts Archive

Brian Tashman, Monday 07/23/2012, 3:35pm
It was only a matter of time before Michele Bachmann’s allies tried to play the victim following the backlash against her latest conspiratorial witch hunt, this time focusing on Muslim-Americans serving in the Obama administration. Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy, who helped launch the attacks on Sec. Hillary Clinton’s aide Huma Abedin and whose report Bachmann and four other Republican members cite in their letters to the inspectors general, spoke today with David Bossie of the right-wing group Citizens United to defend the witch hunt. Bossie said that Bachmann... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 05/10/2011, 4:22pm
In honor of the news that Newt Gingrich is going to announce his intention to run for president tomorrow, I just want to piggyback off our our earlier post to just take remind everyone of just how massive his ego already is. Starting with his speech at the annual CPAC conference in 2009, Gingrich has made a habit of turning his mere entrance into a spectacle. While every other speaker during every other CPAC has entered the stage from the wings, Gingrich alone enters the room from behind and works his way, state-of-the-union-like, through the crowd as Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger"... MORE >
Brian Tashman, Tuesday 12/21/2010, 6:04pm
After expressing hope that efforts to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell would ultimately fail, Elaine Donnelly of the Center for Military Readiness (who, by the way, is not close to being an expert on the issue) told Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid that the draft is on its way once DADT is scrapped. According to Donnelly, the end of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “could put remaining troops in greater danger, and break the All-Volunteer Force.” Donnelly joins other right wing activists like Tony Perkins, David Bossie, Frank Gaffney, and Bryan Fischer, in... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Saturday 02/20/2010, 5:48pm
When I saw this Crooks and Liars video of Newt Gingrich's entrance to CPAC today, walking from the back of the auditorium to "Eye of the Tiger" while being mobbed by the audience, I thought C&L must have made some sort of mistake: The reason I thought this was a mistake was because this is literally exactly the same thing he did last year, all the way down to the introduction from David Bossie of Citizens United: No speaker at CPAC makes this sort of absurdly self-aggrandizing entrance ... except Gingrich, who has done it in two consecutive... MORE >
Kyle Mantyla, Tuesday 10/28/2008, 5:55pm
The Associated Press reports that Rick Santorum, Mike Huckabee, Ken Blackwell, Jerome Corsi, and others all make an appearance in a new anti-Obama DVD produced by Citizens United that is set to be included with newspapers in swing states just before the election: Readers of Ohio's three largest newspapers, along with papers in Florida and Nevada, are finding an anti-Barack Obama DVD in editions this week. Citizens United, a conservative advocacy group based in Washington, plans to release a 95-minute film in the five swing-state publications to highlight Obama's record on abortion... MORE >
, Tuesday 02/12/2008, 10:52am
How finicky were the activists at the Conservative Political Action Conference? Romney, McCain, and Huckabee each bent over backwards to cater to the far-right sentiments of the audience, but the speaker who got the most “presidential” reception was Newt Gingrich.  “Hillary and Obama talk about real change—Newt Gingrich delivers real change!” trumpeted David Bossie of Citizens United in introducing this “one-man think tank.” Bossie’s “only regret,” he said, was that Gingrich was not a candidate for president. (... MORE >