The Kool-Aid Decade: From Gingrich's Assent, to Rove's Fall.

[The Backlash Cometh]

I offer a simple proclamation that the era from the time that Newt Gingrich began his revolution to the time that Bush's Brain was caught red-handed shall henceforth be called: "The Kool-Aid Decade." It's a little more than ten years, but it's close enough.

Imagine what took place in this era:

(1) In the mid 90s, the right-wing hunted down a president that was honestly elected. They spent 70 million dollars of tax payer money to buy themselves a perjury trap.

(2) They proceeded to impeach that president.

(3) The media pundit was born and removed honest journalism from the consciousness of everyday Americans, and replaced it with a mean-spirited shock-talk style that stirred-up the worst prejudices & fears in every American. (No offense to the weeklies that held onto the last remnants of journalistic integrity on paper.)

(4) Without media restraints, the Republicans continued a campaign of character assassinations (i.e. liberal bad, conservative good.), further damaging the image of Democrats and other contenders. In fact, we'll probably find out that as early as this period, media personnel were being bought by the Right. We know the Right had been buying radio and other media outlets, why not national journalists too?

(5) The Republican onslaught continued through the late nineties and right-wing agendas were pushed almost without resistance. The line between church and state became ever more nebulous; business regulations were weakened allowing the portfolios of everyday Americans to become vulnerable to greedy, corrupt financiers. Even Clinton couldn't stop it with his veto power as shown by his inability to stop legislation that removed CEOs from liability and weakened the stockholder's power to sue the decision-maker.

(6) In 2000, Bush's election brought in a new facet to America: the suspicion that national elections were being rigged. But before we had time to look into that first election, we were attacked on 9/11. Even if we had information of a smoking gun regarding rigged elections, no one would listen because the war effort took center stage. Without anyone to stop him, Bush continued to escalate the suspense with each foreign policy decision.

(7) Meanwhile, domestically, Bush and Republican senators and legislators continued to push the right-wing agenda. Career public servants were removed, federal reports were fixed and the tension & distrust rose between neighbors of different political stripes.

(8) Americans who believed in a secular government began reaching out to each other through the internet. A new American community was born to challenge the right-wing blog community that was already in existence. In fact, it should be a MAJOR focus of collegiate studies of how the bloggers changed America. i.e. Drudge & Freepers in the 90s changed it to the Right; and left-wing bloggers after 2000 took it back.

(9) Left-wing bloggers put information on the net which the MSM refused to report, but it was only when left-wing bloggers began to discuss the connections between paid pundits and the Bush Administration that the media thaw began. From that point, the flow of information from the left-wing blog to MSM, which was so easily made available to Drudge in the 90s, began.

(10) Who can name the stories which the MSM has been reporting since they've been challenged by the net? Gannon, surely. Possibly the Rove story would have come out on its own but the internet just sped things up.

Did I miss anything?