Gibbs the Mugger

(2PM EST – promoted by Nightprowlkitty)

So who is this Robert Gibbs, this Obama appointee who hates progressives (many to choose from there I know), this hippie puncher who is incensed that We The People would, you know, complain about being sold out on every serious progressive promise made by Obama during his 2008 snow-job of an election campaign?

I spent the first month after the 2008 election in shock over Rham-the-Blue-Shit, Geithner-the-bankster, and Summers-the-misogynistic-apologist-for-corporate-criminals.  Robert Gibbs wasn’t particularly noticed; I just assumed Obama would appoint, for his spokesperson at least, someone who would at least have some sympathy for the people (like me) who maxed out campaign donations, worked for his election, and celebrated long into the night when “we” succeeded.  

I never dreamed that he’d made as the voice of his “progressive” Administration one of the sorriest of the Clintonian Blue Shits, a progress hater who’d turn the nation over to the criminal banksters and thieving Cayman-Island-sheltered corporatists–and one who was instrumental in the elimination of the 2004 Presidential candidacy of Howard Dean.

From Common Dreams, “Political Mugging in America:  Anatomy of an ‘Independent’ Smear Campaign”:

“On November 7, 2003, a strange new group no one had ever heard of called ‘Americans for Jobs & Healthcare’ was quietly formed and soon thereafter began running a million dollar operation including political ads against then-frontrunner Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean. The commercials ripped Dean over his positions or past record on gun rights, trade and Medicare growth. But the most inflammatory ad used the visual image of Osama bin Laden as a way to raise questions about Dean’s foreign policy credibility. While the spots ran, Americans for Jobs-through its then-spokesman, Robert Gibbs, a former Kerry campaign employee-refused to disclose its donors.

…

“Who exactly forms a stealth, hit-and-run operation in presidential politics today, up and down in six weeks, doing $1 million worth of damage in advertising and other spending before the new federal, 30-day broadcast limit on political issue ads by outside groups kicked in December 21?

…

“The registered e-mail address of Americans for Jobs belonged to Mark W. Ward, a client specialist in the Washington, D.C., office of the billion dollar law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, one of the largest law firms in the world, which also has a large lobbying network representing companies like Verizon, Entergy-Koch LP, and Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America….

“…Skadden Arps is also the fifth most generous career patron to Senator Kerry, its employees directly donating $125,550 to his campaigns, its clients lavishing many times more than that over the years. In fact, the law firm and its employees are the largest donors to Kerry for the current election cycle. But Miles said Kerry ‘had nothing to do with [the 527] to our knowledge.'”

http://www.commondreams.org/vi…  (Read the whole thing–it’s well worth your time.)

And it worked.  Howard Dean came into Iowa as a frontrunner. When the shenanigans and dirty tricks had played themselves out, John Kerry, a safe corporatist shill, was in the lead, and he went on to play his appointed role as fall guy for Bush the Dimmer.

Robert Gibbs is the character Obama appointed to be the public face of his Administration.  This is the guy who is supposed to communicate to us the policies and political orientation of the Democratic White House.  This is the guy who tells us just who Obama serves; to whom he listens; and to whom he does not.

So why did Obama choose Robert Gibbs, the mugger? I guess Dana Perino wasn’t available.