Tim Phillips: Portrait of a Parasite
If a bucket of excrement could somehow be imbued with consciousness and an evil intelligence, you’d have Tim Phillips.
Karl Rove and the late unlamented Lee Willie Horton Atwater have been household names for years. But Tim Phillips has managed to stay beneath the radar, as well as beneath contempt. FreedomWorks is the best known of the “grass roots” front organizations for the Health Insurance lobby. But Americans For Prosperity (AFP), led by Tim Phillips, is just as busy behind the scenes. And they’re every bit as slippery and underhanded.
HMO employees and lobbyists disguised as protesters, inbred dunces who are gullible enough to believe all the bullshit spewed out by the HMO lobby — Americans For Prosperity has it all. In addition to fighting health care reform, Americans For Prosperity has other Astroturf front groups “protesting” against labor unions and clean energy legislation.
In the late 1990s, Tim Phillips and Ralph Reed were working together to unify devout Christians and corporate powerbrokers against their common enemy: those wicked Satanic bureaucrats who were regulating the energy industry. Their organization was called Century Strategies. Their “grass roots” campaign was what led to the deregulation frenzy that brought us the Enron meltdown — which caused thousands of people to lose their jobs, retirement pensions and life savings. Hallelujah!
Remember now, they were just following the Bible. Who could forget that stirring passage where Jesus said: “Get those fuckin’ socialist bureaucrats out of the oil industry! NOW, Asshole!”
After wreaking havoc on millions of people, Phillips sunk even lower. In the history of political attack ads, one particular commercial set the all-time record for its long reach into the depths of putrid. Yes, you know the one — that 2002 TV ad that equated Senator Max Cleland (Vietnam veteran and triple amputee) with Osama bin Laden. And that ad was produced by none other than…drum roll…Tim Phillips.
Rachel Maddow interviewed Phillips on her show and called him a parasite. That’s putting it mildly.
Labels: AFP, Americans For Prosperity, Century Strategies, Rachel Maddow Tim Phillips, Ralph Reed Tim Phillips, Tim Phillips parasite
posted by Tom Harper @ 10:39 AM
24 Comments:
. AFP is doing a superb job of rallying people who are fed up with the spending and gov't take over of just about anything not nailed down. I just want someone out there like Tim who will stand up and tell us the truth. If the truth hurts, which obviously it does or Rachel wouldn't attack Tim as she does.Why can't you see that Obama is leading us down a path of destruction with hardly anyway of returning. Yes, I know, Bush started some of it, but why is Obama justified to finish it with endless means?
Let's stimulate the economy by investing in companies who provide jobs and stop spending it on ACORN's and hand outs and the like which do nothing to get this economy back on track.
It would appear at times,
That the Democrats lack spines,
Still better as a whole,
Than Republicans who lack souls
Phillips is certainly a piece of work and rightfully deserves to mentioned in the same breath as Rove and Atwater. I was living in Georgia by 2002 and remember vividly the way Max Cleland was taken apart by "that" ad. Making sure that a pretty useless Saxby Chambliss, but republican candidate, won the election.
Lisa: "Yes, I know, Bush started some of it" -- well, that's a beginning at least. Bush was responsible for most of it. The shit that got dumped on Obama was being created and nurtured and expanded all through Dumbya's reign of error; and for decades prior to that too. Even Dick Armey admitted this; I have a quote from him several posts ago. He used the analogy of a corrupt sheriff getting out of Dodge right before public outrage got out of control, and the new sheriff (that would be Obama) riding into town at high noon to be jeered by an angry mob.
Lew: Ah, a poet. Gee, a member of Congress who has a soul AND a spine -- the search continues.
Holte: I'll bet that TV ad got lots of publicity in Georgia. It's unusual for a local campaign to get nationwide publicity, which that ad certainly got. It's too bad Tim Phillips isn't better known; he certainly rivals Karl Rove when it comes to shitslinging.
I loved how Maddow took him down. I'm surprised he went on there...he had to know he had little to gain and a lot to lose.
Lisa- I noticed your blog is called "Lisa's Thoughts" but there don't seem to be any listed there. Are you trying to be ironic?
so Tom the answer is to do what create big deficits and add big energy costs to an already flailing economy and struggling families?
Maybe some of this big spending should be used to actually help the economy. But here we are with record high unemployment and the threat of high inflation and bigger taxes,high energy costs threatening families and business and we should be supportive of this?
This isn't about anything more than a big power grab by the democrats. Once again we see why Carter didn't last.
Meanwhile Russia is making more missles and we are going to show China our Nuclear sites.
Why don't I have tha same warm and fuzzy feeling you seem to have?
I don't know how yu think this is so great.
I didn't know this guy was the same one who was behind the smear of Max Cleland, but somehow it isn't surprising.
The right wing has gotten to the point where it seems like anyone who disagrees with them is an enemy of the republic. It seems groups like AFP will stop at absolutely nothing to see to it that Karl's dream of a one-party political system becomes reality in our country. And there is nothing American about that approach.
J: I know you posted about this same thing a few days ago. The comments already seemed pretty hot and heavy over there and I couldn't think of anything to add. But I'm glad more people are posting about this.
Yup, "Lisa's Thoughts" -- just a blank screen.
Lisa: So what's your solution to all the shit that got dumped on Obama? I don't like spending trillions of dollars either, but we have these crushing problems that we need to deal with. Energy costs, peak oil, quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, the deficit, unemployment? And don't forget, the health care crisis will drag down the whole country if something isn't done soon. Do you have any solutions, or just more blurtings about big government and ACORN and George Soros and Saul Alinsky?
Snave: I didn't know this was the same person either until I saw that article. The character assassination of Max Cleland, energy deregulation in the late '90s, the current healthscare fiasco -- he's up to his eyeballs in it all.
The political/religious/corporate right has extensive networks of these operatives. Slightly fewer since Jack Abramoff was busted but still plenty.
Thought you might find the following, from here, interesting as it adds a few details to Phillips' list of "credits."
"To head Americans for Prosperity, the brothers ( oil billionaires David and Charles Koch ) tapped Tim Phillips, one of the Republican Party's most notorious dirty tricksters. Phillips served as a strategic consultant to George W. Bush in 2000 and reputedly took part in the smear campaign in South Carolina that portrayed John McCain's adopted daughter as his mulatto love child. That same year, Phillips was linked to a nearly identical smear campaign in Virginia that portrayed the primary opponent of Rep. Eric Cantor — a Jew — as the "only Christian in the contest." Under Phillips, AFP became a driving force behind the Tea Party protests against Obama's economic stimulus plan, and the group organized the Austin mob that attacked Rep. Doggett. Boosted by the mobilizing effort, AFP now boasts 700,000 members and chapters in 24 states."
When I was a teenager, Jack Paar used to joke, "If the nuts ever get organized, we're in trouble." Well, they did and we are.
ACORN runs the military/industrial complex? That's the impression I'm getting. Send ACORN into hibernation!
Tom I love the way you justify anything Obama does.This has nothing more to do than to steer us left a long time wish list of the democrats and the wing nuts of the party are using the Democrat party to get their socialist agenda pushed through.
Maybe you haven't noticed but many citizens don't want to turn us into your so called "Utopian" society with Soros calling the shots with all his billions.
Yes there I said it again "Soros" using his money to manipulate this country. A known Nazi collaborator.
And that is not some fear mongering conspiracy.
But obvioulsy that's what you must love about him.
We don't need to make it more difficult on people we need to get some adult supervision in the White House instead of campus radicals.
SW: Good find, finding that article online. I used a quote from that article a few posts ago, but I couldn't find it online anywhere. Rolling Stone seems to be doing that more and more. Maybe they're afraid people won't buy their magazine if they can get it for free online.
I guess the name Tim Phillips didn't stick with me when I read that article. So the smear campaign against McCain in 2000 is another notch on his belt. We've got a winner here.
Either Reagan or Bush 41 referred to the Far Right radicals as "the crazies in the basement." And they've been out of the basement ever since 2001.
Randal: When you hear that dreaded midnight knock at the door, it'll be ACORN, coming to take you away.
Lisa: So that's your step-by-step detailed plan I was asking you about? Your solution to what Obama and Congress should do? OK, we'll get right on it.
Tom what's your solution? Anything Obama says? That's a great plan.
What I don't want is super tax increases on busines and energy.
Incentives are what is needed.
We need to get the econmy on track and stop this BS of spending. It's about jobs not about Goldman Sachs.
LOL! Go Rachel. Yeah, I don't really like this guy.
lisa farted,
so Tom the answer is to do what create big deficits and add big energy costs to an already flailing economy and struggling families?
Maybe some of this big spending should be used to actually help the economy. But here we are with record high unemployment and the threat of high inflation and bigger taxes,high energy costs threatening families and business and we should be supportive of this?
You been down just about any highway lately, MENSA candidate?
But I do see your point. Obviously your beloved monkey Messiah's policy of fleecing us so Paris Hilton could have more coke money has done wonders for the economy, hasn't it? I mean, just look around you at the economic legacy your monkey (and by extension, YOU) left us.
Minnesota drivers also appreciated your monkey as they fell off that collapsed bridge, not to mention the residents of New Orleans. Entertain us, you dolt; tell us all again how those folks weren't smart enough to save themselves, or how Blanco and Nagin refused to dispatch buses.
so if the bridges are all falling where did all that stimulus money go for those "shovel" ready jobs?
Give me a break with New Orleans already. Didn't you hear Obama tell them on his visit there that things take time?
And that bridge in Minnesota was because the wrong size bolts were used. I know Bush's fault.
Yep all those problems started happening in 2001. Before that all of our infrastructure was in tip top shape. It took a mere 4 years for everything to go south.
JR you need to come up with a better material than that.
Now I'd like to say you farted but you're really full of shit.
Now go and serve your president. He's calling for oyu.
"Tom what's your solution? Anything Obama says? That's a great plan."
I think Obama is doing what needs to be done, as painful as it is to spend trillions of dollars.
"Anything Obama says?" No. I wish he'd gotten us out of Iraq and Afghanistan by now, and that he was pushing more firmly for the public option. And he's trying to do too many things at once. That televised speech to schools, pushing for shorter school vacations, trying to persuade everyone to get a swine flu shot -- he needs to concentrate and prioritize.
Ricardo: Yup, Rachel told him off good.
JR: But it's not just Paris Hilton and her coke habit. Some CEOs are struggling to pay off their fourth vacation home, and that commie president is threatening to raise their taxes. We've gotta mobilize some grass roots protests.
Give me a break with New Orleans already. Didn't you hear Obama tell them on his visit there that things take time?
And that bridge in Minnesota was because the wrong size bolts were used. I know Bush's fault.
Yep all those problems started happening in 2001. Before that all of our infrastructure was in tip top shape. It took a mere 4 years for everything to go south.
JR you need to come up with a better material than that.
You buy every excuse Hannity feeds you, don't you? If you weren't such a shit-filled idiot, I'd try to explain to you how engineers were screaming about BOTH of the aforementioned things for YEARS before they occurred-but there was just no money for such things. How could there be, when your monkey was emptying out the Treasury to pay off his cronies? And he wasn't satisfied robbing us of this generation either; he made sure than many generations hence, we'll STILL be paying his fleecings off.
There are no wrong-sized bolts here, but there are surely a few loose screws. What is it about you morons? Why do right wingers inevitably have to suffer utter catastrophe before any of them realize that repeating slogans over and over doesn't do a damned thing? Your lot isn't a damned bit better than Mao's Red Guards.
Tom if you think the tax increases are only going to hit the rich you are so wrong.
There's a larger pool of people to take from the middle class.
I guess you missed the one when Obama was in the senate he voted for tax increases on those making 40,000 and up. All the rst of his speeches is just hot air and BS. Just like his campaign promises.
Tax increases are coming to a lower middle class town near you.
Rich can afford it who cares about them?
I care about those already struggling. All this will do is wipe out middle America and we will still have our rich but will have more poor. Just like Venezuela and Cuba.
But then again that's what you all seem to be "Hoping" for so I guess you will get all that "change" you voted for.
Well Lisa, we just gave the rich 8 years of incredible tax breaks, did that trickle down to you, us or the economy? No they kept it and demanded more. Look were we are at now. A lot of Conservatives still think tax breaks to the Upper class are a great idea. which increases the divide between rich and poor just like Venezuela which has distributed more of it's wealth - why didn't you mention dirt poor non communist countries like Ecuador, or Panama Hmmmm?
I also find it hard to believe George Soros and his billions will buy the Country when he has to deal with another 300 conservative billionaires in the US alone who would love to keep their status quo
Erik
Tax increses does not an economy make.
Please Soros bought the democrat party. Or should I say Socialist Party?
That's right, I forgot, George Soros is running this whole thing. He tells me what to write.
nice post. thanks.
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