A window into the conservative political culture - the cutout

The D.C. lobbying firm Bonner and Associates is now known to have sent at least six forged letters to Democratic Congressman considering The Climate Change bill urging the local congressman to oppose the bill. All six known fakes are supposedly from the local branch of the NAACP. But now Bonner and Associates has been caught. So what's Bonner and Associates' excuse?

They claim that the letters were sent by a rogue Temp employee. The Temp has since been fired.

Yeah. Right. A rogue temp employee sent six letters carefully designed to look like they came from the local NAACP or from a local Hispanic group.

Look. This is a standard conservative method of polluting the discussion of real issues that effect real people. What does "rogue temp employee" mean?

"Rogue temp" is shorthand for "The designated scapegoat who is a cut-out to be fired in order to insulate those higher in the organization when something like this is actually tracked back to the organization." As we all know "Scooter" Libby was Dick Cheney's designated scapegoat. Cheney himself was Bush's designate scapegoat. I wonder how deep the stack of scapegoats goes?

Needless to say, if no one spots such fakes and there is no risk to the company of exposure, then the employee who was designated as the scapegoat gets a bonus. Very probably such designated scapegoats quickly get hired at other firms with the concealed assistance of the company that fired them. They have proven their willingness to not only conduct such operations, but also to fall on their swords to protect the higher-ups.

I find it strange that being cynical about conservatives is not only normally extremely accurate, but also that it rarely leads to the very worst and most unbelievable of the ethical and legal atrocities conservatives actually conduct. We non-conservative cynics never seem to be able to match the conservative imagination.

Conservatives do not have an ideology that is easily sold to the majority of people, since the conservative ideology is essentially the idea that the wealthy should rule society and make them richer than before without the impertinence of average people questioning them. They win elections either by buying propaganda or by buying politicians, then fooling the majority of people through the two methods of mass propaganda based largely on fear and on declaring scapegoats. These fake letters sent to a politician and other like them are just one example of the kinds of lies that conservatives base their political actions on.

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Addendum 4:57 pm
Zachary Roth (TPM Reporter) is all over the Bonner and Associates covert propaganda operation.

...a former Bonner and Associates employee who spoke to TPMmuckraker significantly complicated that picture, portraying Bonner and Associates as a place where ethical missteps were far from rare. "They just got caught this time," he said.