Last week, while the media focused almost obsessively on the DNC's spectacle in Denver, the country's most influential conservatives met quietly at a hotel in downtown Minneapolis to get to know Sarah Palin. The assembled were members of the Council for National Policy, an ultra-secretive cabal that networks wealthy right-wing donors together with top conservative operatives to plan long-term movement strategy.
CNP members have included Tony Perkins, James Dobson, Grover Norquist, Tim LaHaye and Paul Weyrich. At a secret 2000 meeting of the CNP, George W. Bush promised to nominate only pro-life judges; in 2004, then-Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist told the group, "The destiny of the nation is on the shoulders of the conservative movement." This year, thanks to Sarah Palin's selection, the movement may have finally aligned itself behind the campaign of John McCain.
Though Dobson and Perkins reportedly attended the recent CNP meeting in Minneapolis, a full roster of guests would be nearly impossible to require. The CNP deliberately operates below the radar, going to excessive lengths to obscure its activities.
According to official CNP policy, "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs before or after a meeting." Thus the CNP's Minneapolis gathering was free of reporters.
I learned of the get-together only through an online commentary by one of its attendees, top Dobson/Focus on the Family flack Tom Minnery. (Watch it here) Minnery described the mood as CNP members watched Palin accept her selection as John McCain's Vice Presidential pick. "I was standing in the back of a ballroom filled with largely Republicans who were hoping against hope that something would put excitement back into this campaign," Minnery said. "And I have to tell you, that speech by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin -- people were on their seats applauding, cheering, yelling... That room in Minneapolis watching on the television screen was electrified. I have not seen anything like it in a long time."
I just needed to see the fingerprints linking her directly to the Religious Right. No one comes from nowhere to be this close to the presidency, without declaring feality to the usual Christianist
suspects. The countermeme of "McCain's gambling, making a bold move without advice" made absolutely no kind of sense, considering the whole corrupt GOP needed a presidential and vice presidential candidate prepared to wreck the rest of the Constitution in order to prevent certain people from being indicted.
We knew she was in the bag; just needed to know who was holding it, is all.
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what's weird tho, is that other
candidates would have done it too--Huckabee certainly.
I think they knew they needed to get the religious right onboard no matter what--and out of the few possible choices that would energize them, Palin also appealed to more groups beyond just that base.
Now that's DATA
Not this crapola about a 17-year-old's uterus. Is the A list picking it up?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
Got it from the Jeralyn post you dropped:
here
Palin: The Right Reasons She's Wrong for the Job
And Max Blumenthal wrote the article for the Nation, so it should get play.
The sourcing is a little thin
I certainly wonder how Max Blumenthal can speak so authoritatively on the goings-on within conservative "ultra-secret cabals".
You could help, instead of criticize.
Could you do me the favor of playing the video, and getting exactly what the CNP member says about Palin? That would help with sourcing. I only have dialup, and your help would link Blumenthal's reporting with actual evidence.
Max Blumenthal can speak so authoritatively
because he's been paying attention. He cites his source, follow the link cg.eye provided.
The Council for National Policy was formed IIRC in 1981-82, spawned from membership of the Religious Roundtable and the residuum of the John Birch Society leaq by Bunker Hunt, megagazzillionair, functional sociopath and former head of the Western Goals Foundation, the one-time super-secret domestic surveilance arm of the Birch Society that fancied itself the beginnings of an American STASI. These are seriously creepy people who give CT theorists credibility.
More on the CNP from Mark Ambinder/ABC News, Sourcewatch and, Blumenthal's overwrought "supersecret" aside, Wikipedia.
These people are the Owner-Operators of the modern Republican Party criminal conspiracy, and if you are among those considering a vote for John McCain then these are the people whose continued power and domination you will be supporting.
[thanks, cg.eye; well caught. With this group, though, "vetted" means they found a useful sockpuppet. I doesn't mean she's clean or morally clear in any civilized way but rather that she'll do their bidding. Once sane people start looking there will be plenty of dirt found under Palin's manicured fingernails.)
But what did he say?
I believe Blumenthal, but a transcript would be great. The record, remember?
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
She's not here for YOU, O-nation. We t*ld You So.
All weekend, genuine old-school liberals have been trying to school the self-involved O-Nation that this choice had nothing to do with them.
"Ha Ha!" they replied. "Let's laugh at the silly idea that they expect centrist feminists will vote for MCain! Let's even turn it into a 'Daily Show' sketch!"
And now it's there in black and white. She brought back into the GOP fold a pivotal base that despises the candidate at the top of the ticket.
While the Democrats were doing soundchecks on Britney's stage in Denver.
The video is not the issue here
It says what Max Blumenthal says it says: CNP members were excited about Palin's pick. What I don't get is where he finds the evidence the CNP was the "hidden hand" behind the nomination. That part is pure conjecture. The fact they were excited is insufficient evidence. I mean, does anyone really believe these folks would ever not rally behind the GOP nominee? They don't have much of a choice. If they snub the party, the party will snub them back and they will be the losers, unless the Democrats offer them something better. Palin gives them an excuse to come in from the cold, and an opportunity to pressure Obama for more concessions. It puts the ball back in his court: can Obama counter the Palin pick with a move of his own?
Heck, I was excited by his pick of Palin (for radically different reasons than the CNP). I am also very secretive, and I don't let reporters in on my deliberations (an ultra-secret cabal of one--it doesn't get any more secretive than that). But I am still waiting for that Blumenthal article identifying me as the "hidden hand" behind her pick.
Um, *yeah*. Dobson, for example,
was withholding his support, which was unheard of this late in a campaign where McCain no longer had competition.
In short, even if McCain were 90 percent sure the reverend would come around, Dobson used his leverage (nudge, nudge, wink, wink) to get what he wanted -- a running mate that filled every single requirement of the religious right, including support for creationism, anti-abortion and birth control initiatives, and anti-environmentalism.
But your sentences here are interesting:
"I mean, does anyone really believe these folks would ever not rally behind the GOP nominee? They don’t have much of a choice. If they snub the party, the party will snub them back and they will be the losers, unless the Democrats offer them something better."
So, PUMAs who still engage and support reform of the Democratic Party are for shit, then? "Snubbing" the party like a Heather only leads to "snubs" back?
So those fucking Reagan Democrats the DNC has been chasing for the last 30 years, the pandering the party has distorted itself to deliver has been absolutely fruitless? Either the party is damned for alienating its base, or it succesfully discards one base for another. In your opinion, are defectors are more powerful than loyalists? If defectors are powerless, then your stance for McCain is futile. If loyalists are more powerful, then you just gave your power up out of pique.
I think it's as we've discussed elsewhere, it's more complicated than that -- but if you're happy with the whole Manichean thing, good luck to you. You'll need it.
Dobson...
Dobson didn't want McCain to pick a pro-choice candidate. He withheld his support until he got what he wanted.
I don't see what the big deal here is. Blumenthal wants us to believe that this is a lot more significant than it really is.
The progressive movement could learn a lot from Dobson, but groups like NARAL and HRC have simply become part of the Village
lobbyist club, rather than actual advocacy groups.
Video URL
http://www.citizenlink.org/videofeatures...
Clarification: Palin was speaking in DAYTON.
Minnery was watching from a CNP meeting with a live feed, where fellow CNP'ers got all excited.
If these guys are so powerful...
...McCain would have never been the nominee, pure and simple. The GOP would have gotten The Huckster or someone else of that ilk.
As it is, they are just another ant on a log floating down a river, an ant who claims to be steering said log.
I know I've been obliquely criticized for my potty mouth and
passionate responses to comments posted on Corrente, and that I might need to contribute more to a spirit of collegiality on this blog.
But, here, no.
Who in the hell did you support in the Democratic Party? When did you support them? I want names.
Because with those names, I bet you I could trace attack ads for each of those candidates, backed by a 527 with funders traceable to the CNP.
These are the leaders of the VWRC, and their growth in influence in this country has been documented by legitimate sources. They boast about what they've weakened a party that once had the Presidency, Congress, and viable social welfare policies and programs.
Any man with the gall to downplay their influence, when he does not have to, to make his point about a related matter, simply stupefies my common sense.
You minimize the effect on the body politic these men had, when they paid for the books and commentators accusing Hillary Clinton of fucking and murdering Vincent Foster?
If they aren't powerful in the GOP, who are?
Why are you
vetting the republica VP candidate?
Why aren't you going after McCain?
One can only guess.
To whom are you addressing your comment,
and are you confusing the 'vetting' of a VP candidate by the VWRC with our discussion of that said vetting?
Or are drive-bys more your style?
Are you talking
to me?
What good does this do now? What good does it do Obama?
The time for these questions and resultant strategy was months ago.
We're two months out, and the dems are once again being outmaneuvered. They've known for months that McCain is the nominee, and they still haven't been able to come up with talking points, this after eight years of Bush!!!! So instead, they pick on Palin.
Pathetic.
Yes, pie, I am talking to you.
Did you resent my reporting on the source of Palin's vetting?
Are you asking us to find attack points on McCain for Obama, and ignore the very clear VRWC
fingerprint on McCain's selection of a vice presidential candidate?
Are you saying I'm for McCain, because I pay attention to what happened this weekend to the progressive blogosphere, over Palin?
I think we agree that the haka over Palin ended up being a diversionary tactic. Yet the terseness of your post didn't allow any unpacking of what you said, so it felt like you didn't like my post, because it wasn't about McCain.
And the 'One can only guess'? I've been called a troll before, and I'll be called one again, depending on the blog, but if you wanted to say that, say it plain. I don't frequent Eschaton comments because I don't need that grief, so that joint's yours.
I needed things spelled out. Thanks for doing that.
Re: cg.eye
It's not quite that simple. Whether or not the defectors or the loyalists are more powerful is clear only after the election. If you defect, and the nominee wins in spite of your defection, then you are screwed because you'll be ignored in the future. But if your defection causes the nominee to lose, then you are in the driver's seat in the next election, because both parties will come to woo you.
I think the biggest fear the evangelicals have is that they diss a GOP nominee like McCain--and then McCain goes on to win anyway. That would rob them of any leverage in the future. From their perspective, it's better to lose with McCain than to diss him and see him win. So the fact they are now coming out to support McCain is more of an indication they feel his chances are pretty good, and don't want to be left out of the victory party, than any feelings about Governor Sarah Palin.
By the same token, if Obama wins in spite of us PUMAs, McCain Democrats, and the like, he will solidify his control of the party, set the agenda, and freeze us out. Well, that's the risk one takes. But it's better to take a shot at changing the party's present course toward libertarianism than to acquiesce without a struggle.
I admit
I was having trouble trying to figure out what you were getting at.
Of course, there's a VWRC. We've known that for years. The dem leadership has known it, and it's in the position to counteract it.
This isn't about Palin. It's about a weak dem nominee for president. And the dems are reduced to pointing fingers at landmines of their own making. Where's the aggressive campaigning? Where are the hard-hitting ads?
Pulling defeat from the jaws of victory once again...
I get it, and we agree.
And the fools who are gleeful over the RNC being disrupted over Gustav will be regretting it later.
Because of Gustav, McCain got cover to push Bush and Cheney out of the limelight; got to completely cloak the RNC in charitable photo ops; got to downplay not only the RNC's but *Obama*'s activities surrounding Labor Day; and blunted the chance that Obama could place ads capitalizing his success at the DNC, due to the seriousness of the weather that surmounts 'partisanship'.
From Thursday, Obama's campaign has gone to a standstill. That's not good at all.
That's what makes McCain presidential material
He's a fighter and a survivor. He knows how to turn any situation to his advantage. Democratic Party convention? No problem, here's my killer VP nominee, and suddenly nobody talks about Obama anymore. Hurricane? No problem, we disinvite Bush and Cheney, and put McCain into the spotlight. No Republican but McCain could run in a year like this with any chance of winning.
Of course, the fact he's running against a weak nominee like Obama helps a lot.
Oh, no...
... that's what makes McCain's *advisors* powerful and dangerous.
If McCain had his way, he would have asked Lieberman or any of the other main runners-up to be veep -- he only met Palin once, remember? He wanted a friend to serve, not a newbie. His advisors forced his hand.
Sounds more like a Bush-like puppet than a leader. There's no Cheney onstage and obvious, but McCain's being propped up, all the same.
puh-leez....
McCain wanted Lieberman because he agrees with Lieberman. His advisors told McCain that a Lieberman pick would make it impossible for him to win -- the religious right would abandon McCain, and Lieberman provided no compensating political advantages.
No one "controlled" McCain here, they convinced him. And this wasn't a "policy" decision, but a political one -- and McCain made the smart poltical choice for his campaign.
haha
Survivor, yes. Fighter? Well, some vets disagree.
Hurricane? No problem, just put extra sprinkles on your cake. It's almost a parody that they held their cake party press conference at a military base home to search and rescue helicopter forces at the same time Katrina was flooding.
Once again the Republican supporters are heard from
here at Corrente.
A post about the malevolence and manipulativeness of the crime syndicate called the Republican Party is diverted into a denigration of Obama and a defense of the wonderful presidential qualities of the criminal John McCain.
Thanks Matt J for your consistent pumping for the Republican criminals, and pie for your assist in the threadjack.
Criminals, and their co-conspirators; nothing less but nothing more.
Well, as the Democratic Party platform says...
... "A great nation now demands that its leaders abandon the politics of partisan division..." which can only mean (1) that voting Republican is an entirely legitimate choice.
And if you had your pick of (2) one politician to send to the Ninth Circle of Hell, who would it be? Bruce Fein (R), or Steny Hoyer (D)?
I didn't make the contradiction in point 1: the D team that wrote the platform did. And I didn't make the contradiction in point 2: Reality did that.
And yes, I too would like to see R criminals held accountable. But the Ds don't -- retroactive immunity for the telcos -- so what do my likes matter?
Personally, I'd go to that cute site and rip it apart; I never would have found the link on my own.
[ ] Very tepidly voting for Obama [ ] ?????. [ ] Any mullah-sucking billionaire-teabagging torture-loving pus-encrusted spawn of Cthulhu, bless his (R) heart.
"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi
what's with all the "when will she drop out" posts
at a ton of sites today? Wonkette, TalkLeft, Kos...more too.
is this coordinated?
it's way offensive, and reminders of what the media and many blogs did repeatedly to Hillary.
umm..
not insulting. For one thing, Hillary was qualified. This VP pick is soooo unqualified. Also, see, Harriet Miers. Same playbook, I think they knew she wasn't vetted or would bow out for personal attacks. They get to submit a second choice and blame the politics of personal, mysogynistic blah blah.
Yes it is insulting, because the left blogosphere used the
same attacks against Palin that they used with Clinton, with illegitimate child bingo added.
*They* could have attacked Palin on the issues, and shown they'd learned their lesson about reflexively using sexist language. The insult is that they learned nothing, and now they can be attacked by the GOP for being sexists and hypocrites.
We warned them, and they did not listen.
Not a Surprise
Nice post for pulling it together, but this is who the GOP is and so it's not a surprise that these folks got a say. If anything, they're more powerful with McCain because they don't like him and he needs them.
There's actually a lesson in there for liberals - the conservative evangelicals built a base that gets constantly tended to and whose blessing means everything to the GOP. I don't want to emulate the GOP in terms of message, but I do wish sometimes that liberals would realize the conservative base didn't get built in one election cycle. They concentrated on putting together the machine and the elections came later. Sure, they put together a corrupt, awful machine but it works, which is more than I can say of the progressive movement.
"Do what you feel in your heart to be right -- for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, and damned if you don't. " - Eleanor Roosevelt
Council for National Policy
Never has so much evil been in one room, save for yesterday upon the opening of the Republican National Convention. *rimshot* I'm here all night, guys.
BTW, I get it; the group is secretive. I wasn't sure why that kept being repeated. It isn't at all rare for these groups to operate this way. Go read up on the left's Democracy Alliance. Each side has these back rooms and the purse.
So, we've linked conservative Republican, Christianist
govenor to a conservative Republican, Christianist
organization. Gotcha' Sarah Palin. Gotcha'. I'll be sure to not to forget when I don't vote for the Republican ticket in November that conservative Republican, Christianist
Sarah Palin is actually a conservative Republican, Christianist
.
But, we've always been at war with Eastasia...
Just heard a very nice subtle Obama ad
"Do you want four more years of the same song?" using James Taylor's "Don't know much" for a parody.
'bout time.