Have You Seen This Man?
There’s a good chance you might have seen him if you live in Washington’s 16th, 17th, 26th, 28th, or 47th Legislative Districts, where a GOP-funded scare tactic is spreading false information just in time for the Republicans’ big election year push on the sex offender issue. The mailer reads, “This violent predator lives in your community,” but it has turned up in mailboxes near Walla Walla, Tacoma, Kelso, and Vancouver (WA). Which makes this supposed sex offender either a major Washington landowner with an extremely diverse portfolio, or a fiction. The bet of the bloggers who have been unraveling this story is on the latter.
“I’ve seen a lot of offensive things as a participant and observer of politics, but this is one of the most vile things I have ever seen,” writes a blogger in Vancouver, Washington.
Over at the conservative SoundPolitics, the person in the photo is alleged by Stefan Sharkansky to be a Level 3 sex offender from Pierce County. But rather than explain why the GOP is erroneously warning residents of far off Walla Walla County—to pick just one example—that this man lives among them, Sharkansky is taking a page from Karl Rove’s playbook and trying to paint the Democrats as unconcerned about things that scare Americans. In Washington State, it seems sex offenders are the new terrorists in terms of political utility. Sharkansky even outlines a loopy theory in which he sees Democrats as being soft on sex offenders (they’re not, by the way) because Democrats don’t want to upset their sex offender friends in the teacher’s union.
To which David Goldstein responds:
You know what Stefan… fuck you. If you actually believe that Dems would protect teachers unions over sexually abused children then you are just plain sick. And if you don’t believe it, then your are as dishonest and conscienceless as the GOP operatives who designed and executed this disgusting fear campaign.
Don’t expect this to be the last you hear about sex offenders before the elections in November…
You know, I've gotten so used to Karl Rove's tactics of swiftboating, gay baiting, fear mongering, and all the rest that I've come to just take it all in stride. I didn't think anything the Republicans could do, or depths to which they would plunge, would surprise me. But this really does. This is a new low. Fear mongering of the most vile kind, and a lie to boot. This totally disgusts me.
While I tend to lean left, I have been known in the past to support centrist Republicans. But if this is how the Republican party chooses to campaign, they've lost me for life. They deserve all the backlash they get for this.