Harry Reid: Conservative talk radio hosts are also astroturfers
posted at 4:27 pm on August 6, 2009 by Allahpundit
The Speaker of the House doesn’t understand what astroturfing is, so why should the Senate majority leader?
Reid, armed with a patch of Astroturf, slammed Republicans for sponsoring town hall attacks on Democrats and accused the party of waging a barricade on Democratic efforts to pass health care reform legislation.
“I just want to show you what Astroturf really is,” Reid said to laughter. “They’re taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor mongers, and insurance rackets.”…
A senior Republican Senate aide shot back: “Harry Reid will be surprised to learn that not only do the people he routinely insults have opinions, they also vote. Right now the ‘astroturf’ is out-polling Harry Reid 60-40 in Nevada.”
But Democrats seemed to be on a roll with their pushback Thursday.
“These guys don’t care about you,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin said of the town hall protesters. “They care about YouTube.”
“We can spot a ringer,” Durbin said.
Help me figure this out. The whole point of “astroturfing” is to generate fake grassroots activity, right? That’s where the name comes from: Astroturf is a type of synthetic grass. Well, how is it “fake” if actual grassroots conservatives hear Rush Limbaugh say “you should go to your local townhall meeting on health care” and decide to go? They’re not being paid or fed or bused in or given pre-made signs. There’s nothing organized about it, or at least no more so than “objective” journalists recycling Democratic talking points about mobs by the dozen. Seriously, am I missing something here or have we now reached the point where conservative opinion is per se illegitimate and tantamount to a political dirty trick?
Blowback
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One of Rush’s callers called him “Mobfather” today…Rush loved it.
ladyingray on August 6, 2009 at 4:28 PM
Did his hair piece fall of or something?
lorien1973 on August 6, 2009 at 4:29 PM
What imbeciles live in Nevada to vote for this ignoramous?
daesleeper on August 6, 2009 at 4:30 PM
They can’t even refer to them as insurance companies anymore. They are just rackets.
That is so pathetic.
MarkTheGreat on August 6, 2009 at 4:30 PM
So I guess any opposition is verboten now. Yeah, this is a winning strategy. Titanic meet iceberg.
elduende on August 6, 2009 at 4:30 PM
And Harry Reid is without a doubt the dumbest pile of protoplasm ever deposited on this earth.
rplat on August 6, 2009 at 4:30 PM
Hey! There’s my freakin’ garden gnome!
whitetop on August 6, 2009 at 4:31 PM
This is going to bite them back.
Nothing pisses me off more than someone telling me that I am too dumb to be pissed off of my own free will.
That, and Leftist arrogance, I mean.
Daddy-O on August 6, 2009 at 4:31 PM
Projection again.
Bush crushed dissent and called people unpatriotic because when liberals are elected they -do- crush dissent and call it unpatriotic.
lorien1973 on August 6, 2009 at 4:31 PM
I’ll take what’s behind door number two Bob.
MarkTheGreat on August 6, 2009 at 4:31 PM
I’m curious.
Does Dirty Harry know that the left practices, and has been practicing, thuggery for years?
madmonkphotog on August 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM
Once Ted Kennedy dies, Whorehouse Harry Reid will sit silent like the wooden dummy he really is.
Percy_Peabody on August 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM
Bo Bo the Clownnnnn !
Hummer53 on August 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM
These people are digging their own grave. Perhaps it will be covered by astroturf.
txag92 on August 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM
Dos the word macaca ring a bell, Dick???
Good grief.
rockmom on August 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM
Given Harry’s background and connections, his voting base is probably either in Las Vegas itself or buried in holes in the desert just outside the city.
teke184 on August 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM
It’s about creating an impression…that’s all. Democrats have basically been on the wrong side of most issues their whole lives. That’s why they have to couch their discussions in generalities and non-specific terms.
Or just flat out lie about what their plans are.
They deal with their opponents and their motives in the same fashion. The truth doesn’t serve their purpose…it foils it.
Asher on August 6, 2009 at 4:32 PM
When, again, did Rush tell his listeners to do something? Other then get ‘Carbonite’ of course.
Or are we adopting a policy of ‘for the sake of argument’ lets take the left’s propaganda at face value that Rush is behind this?
Spirit of 1776 on August 6, 2009 at 4:33 PM
So Rush is a
communitymob organizer, and the community organizer in chief is what?Daggett on August 6, 2009 at 4:33 PM
Oh, yes, the gentile Harry Reid who complains of the “smell of the tourists” in the DC during the summertime. He’s the one who cares about us little people.
Dark Star on August 6, 2009 at 4:33 PM
Nothing but manufactured outrage by Reid.
ICBM on August 6, 2009 at 4:33 PM
when is somebody going to investigate dingy harry and his dirty real-estate deals?
right4life on August 6, 2009 at 4:34 PM
Calling Lorien! There’s a shovel ready project we can all get behind.
Laura in Maryland on August 6, 2009 at 4:34 PM
It’s astonishing they are throwing a word around created to describe Axelrod’s shameful tactics and then use it in the completely wrong context. People who follow blogs, talk radio and the like know what the term means, what in the world does the average person think astroturfing could possibly be?
cadams on August 6, 2009 at 4:34 PM
Of course, the great irony is that Axelrod actually had an astroturfing business. I mean, geez, these people have no shame.
Pasalubong on August 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM
Astroturf went bankrupt five years ago, so given the cost of Obamacare, it’s kind of appropriate Harry’s carrying it around.
jon1979 on August 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM
Yes, telling people that their opinions and feelings are illegitimate is suuuuuuuch a winning strategy! I tried that approach on my wife. Once.
innominatus on August 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM
How much tax-payer money did that chunk of astroturf cost us, Dingy Harry?
Enoxo on August 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM
The Sleeping Giant is waking up, Dinghy Harry. You had better start packing.
kingsjester on August 6, 2009 at 4:35 PM
Make the posters…
Progressive Democrats vs. The American People
pjean on August 6, 2009 at 4:36 PM
Harry, Harry…what are you going to do when you are unemployed a year from January?
Vashta.Nerada on August 6, 2009 at 4:36 PM
I’ll just say the only 2 words I ever say about this man:
mental disorder
Brat on August 6, 2009 at 4:36 PM
Harry, you sad little man. It’s ok only a little over a year left of your service and you can forget about all this nasty politicing stuff.
HoustonRight on August 6, 2009 at 4:36 PM
How is that this corruptocrat is getting a pass???
Christian Conservative on August 6, 2009 at 4:37 PM
I can name that tune in thirteen notes or less..
nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, gooood bye…
Laura in Maryland on August 6, 2009 at 4:37 PM
Wait… the left is supported by ACORN, the UNIONS, and David Axelrod… all three being directly or indirectly funded by the US Government.
But Talk Radio and the blogs are astroturfing?
Romeo13 on August 6, 2009 at 4:37 PM
Here’s the thing…
AstroTurf doesn’t grow. It’s the same level when you place it as it is at the end.
These town halls and tea parties are growing, in size and volume.
Clearly not AstroTurf.
Enoxo on August 6, 2009 at 4:37 PM
I have an old seabag for Harry to pack all his shite in when he loses next year! :D
HondaV65 on August 6, 2009 at 4:37 PM
Harry you ignorant slut!
Laura in Maryland on August 6, 2009 at 4:37 PM
I’m sure most of you have already read it but Linda Douglass’ guest blog by way of the irreplaceably brilliant IowaHawk is as usual a must read for both laughs and unsettling truths.
GreenBlade on August 6, 2009 at 4:38 PM
AP… are you allowed to say that on the Internets?
clorensen on August 6, 2009 at 4:38 PM
AP, you are not looking at the proper dictionary. You need the liberal one, not the factual one. Up is down and down is up.
Vashta.Nerada on August 6, 2009 at 4:38 PM
The more they attack ordinary people with a gripe, the more votes they lose.
What one them the election, wasn’t conservatives coming over to vote…it was the “moderates” middle of the roaders.
The kind of people who are worried about losing their jobs, who pay taxes, who do not want to be bothered by politics.
Now the libs are dissing the voters that got the elected…and they won’t recover.
They have chosen the path of “fight”, and Americans don’t back down from bully’s. And they don’t like their neighbors pushed around.
The elites show they know how to speak to middle America, but they can’t relate to them.
*
When elections are over, then politicians are judged by their actions.
right2bright on August 6, 2009 at 4:38 PM
Dingy Harry is such an epic failure that he can’t even properly identify one of the oldest tricks in his own Lefty playbook. Way to score in your own basket dumb@$$.
Flyover Country on August 6, 2009 at 4:39 PM
Let’s not call Pelosi names here.
Laura in Maryland on August 6, 2009 at 4:39 PM
I can name that tune in thirteen notes or less..
nah nah nah nah, nah nah nah nah, hey hey hey, gooood bye…
Laura in Maryland on August 6, 2009 at 4:37 PM
LOL! I loved that show.
txag92 on August 6, 2009 at 4:39 PM
If I’m ever in the vicinity of it, it will be covered with something more than astroturf.
venividivici on August 6, 2009 at 4:39 PM
They’ve really bought that Thomas Frank “What’s the Matter with Kansas” argument, haven’t they? We’re all too freaking stupid to know what our self-interest is.
Mr. D on August 6, 2009 at 4:40 PM
Figure it took several years for Jefferson (who kept his committee ships), who had cash in his freezer, don’t count on Reid being investigated.
right2bright on August 6, 2009 at 4:40 PM
Uh, yes, and besides being illegitimate and dirty, it’s also inherently raaaaacist!
AZCoyote on August 6, 2009 at 4:40 PM
You, sir, owe me a keyboard.
wildcat84 on August 6, 2009 at 4:40 PM
Yes we have! sad to say
cmsinaz on August 6, 2009 at 4:41 PM
If I’m ever in the vicinity of it, it will be covered with something more than astroturf.
venividivici on August 6, 2009 at 4:39 PM
Be sure and take pictures.
txag92 on August 6, 2009 at 4:41 PM
Reid is a Mormon. For the most part he represented their conservative values though he does pander to the unions. Since becoming the majority leader he has gone completely off the rails as an anti-American liberal. He will lose his next election over this lurch toward NAZI-esque socialism.
csdeven on August 6, 2009 at 4:41 PM
I don’t recall Rush actually instructing anybody to go to meetings. Maybe he sorta did in passing, but he’s never like Kos issuing “action alerts” or any of that.
We are seeing a mass political suicide right now, and I’m still shocked that there hasn’t been some kind of intervention by some of the Democrats who still have one foot in reality.
forest on August 6, 2009 at 4:42 PM
Surely, you jest. Bush did no such thing. The focus is on Obama’s thugs crushing dissent. Guess what? We won’t let them crush anything. We will crush them.
BottomLine5 on August 6, 2009 at 4:42 PM
The Dims will get to that right after they investigate Barry and Michelle Obama’s dirty real-estate deals . . . IOW, never.
AZCoyote on August 6, 2009 at 4:42 PM
Did you listen to Rush today?
“Community organizers should not b*tch when communities organize.”
PWNED!
madmonkphotog on August 6, 2009 at 4:42 PM
Perhaps folks should dig up a piece of their yard and haul it in to Town Hall meetings as a show of their authenticity?
People showing up of their own volition is fake now, apparently.
Dopavash on August 6, 2009 at 4:43 PM
Great point. Really dumb (anti-American) book. I can’t stand his WSJ column either. An insubstantial “intellectual” who knows best for everyone else.
clorensen on August 6, 2009 at 4:43 PM
AIG were also cast as villains. Any company that makes profit is now a racket.
I think Democrats are overestimating how much the average person hates ‘the evil profit making corporation’. When most people hear this crap they hear a politician maligning the company that employes them and offers them a living.
gwelf on August 6, 2009 at 4:43 PM
I think it’s a tactic the left has used for decades…just redefine a word in a different context and smear your opponent with it. The Dems astroturfed the helll out of the last election…it’s a bad word, but many clueless fools in the country still have no idea what it means…so they just apply it to real grass-roots protests to give it a new meaning…bad word (describing the bad thing the Dems do all the time) get’s applied to legitimate activity of opponents…muddled heads who voted for Obama in the first place get really confused and start thinking Repubs are up to dirty tricks…mission accomplished.
AUINSC on August 6, 2009 at 4:44 PM
I don’t think they know what the word means.
evergreen on August 6, 2009 at 4:44 PM
Because Politico says so.
Jim Treacher on August 6, 2009 at 4:44 PM
That’s been the Democrats’ M.O. for at least three decades.
WesternActor on August 6, 2009 at 4:45 PM
Geez, these people really are becoming unhinged. At least when the tea party attendees were being trashed, it was mostly coming from the drive-bys. Sure, Gibbs said Obama wasn’t aware of the tea parties(yeah right), but at least that can be chalked up to indifference.
What we have now with these politicians is outright disdain for their constituents. It’s fine for an elected representative to respectfully disagree with the public. That’s why we have elections. If the voters feel they aren’t being represented properly, they can replace their Congressmen with someone else.
But for Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of the Dems to accuse everyday Americans of being Nazis, corporate shills, and GOP hacks goes beyond polite disagreement. It’s slander. And it’s going to turn what was a sizable, but not insurmountable, deficit in the polls into a landslide defeat for the Obama Administration and the Democrat Congress.
Doughboy on August 6, 2009 at 4:45 PM
The real value of doing that would be openly mocking the left of their faux outrage. Use Alinsky against them.
ICBM on August 6, 2009 at 4:45 PM
They must commute back and forth to California, because surely they are the same imbeciles voting for Boxer and Pelosi…
jana on August 6, 2009 at 4:46 PM
FIFY
clorensen on August 6, 2009 at 4:46 PM
Surely, you jest. Bush did no such thing. The focus is on Obama’s thugs crushing dissent. Guess what? We won’t let them crush anything. We will crush them.
BottomLine5 on August 6, 2009 at 4:42 PM
I think Lorien’s point is that the leftwingers know that when they are elected, they crush dissent and call it unpatriotic — therefore, they projected and assumed the analogous things of Bush even though there was no evidence of any such thing. It’s the only style of “leadership” the know, so that’s what they stick with.
jwolf on August 6, 2009 at 4:46 PM
One hopes….
jana on August 6, 2009 at 4:47 PM
That about sums it up.
BacaDog on August 6, 2009 at 4:47 PM
And you thought the restroom lines were long at the ballpark!
Laura in Maryland on August 6, 2009 at 4:47 PM
Some of the Blue Dogs are trying, but getting shouted down.
I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of the cross the aisle closer to the 2010 elections.
teke184 on August 6, 2009 at 4:48 PM
It’s understandable that Dims think that way. After all, their constituents are people who rarely ever think for themselves, so they’re not used to dealing with people who have independently functioning minds and don’t need to rely upon others to tell them what to think or how to behave.
AZCoyote on August 6, 2009 at 4:48 PM
How is that “on a roll”? Accusing average Americans of being hacks with evil agendas? Making one stupid statement even as your poll numbers keep sliding?
amerpundit on August 6, 2009 at 4:49 PM
Of course. That’s the way it’s been since I’ve been alive, anyway. That’s why the left just cannot see any bias in the state-controlled media: there’s the correct way of thinking, and there’s the conservative way.
ddrintn on August 6, 2009 at 4:49 PM
http://iowahawk.typepad.com/iowahawk/2009/08/crisis-of-confidence-americas-government-losing-faith-in-outoftouch-constituents.html
“Crisis of Confidence: America’s Government Losing Faith in Out-of-Touch Constituents”
the_nile on August 6, 2009 at 4:50 PM
Lols. Welcome to Obamanation.
Aquateen Hungerforce on August 6, 2009 at 4:50 PM
” But Democrats seemed to be on a roll with their pushback Thursday.
Because Politico says so.”
Yep
WitchDoctor on August 6, 2009 at 4:50 PM
Cavuto just interviewed the chairman of Astroturf and he’s a little disappointed at the negative references to his brand…
racecar05 on August 6, 2009 at 4:50 PM
Pitchforks and torches.
Jaibones on August 6, 2009 at 4:50 PM
Re Reid’s referring to the “insurance racket” — can anyone remember another politician of this stature (senate majority leader) publicly insulting an entire industry as being somehow illegitimate?
jwolf on August 6, 2009 at 4:51 PM
What we’ve now reached is a point where the extreme left/dkos view of conservative opinion is now mainstream in the presidency and Democrat prty. It was around long before this.
aikidoka on August 6, 2009 at 4:52 PM
Harry Reid says shut up.
You guys are exactly the kind of people who come to DC as tourists and smell the place up.
guntotinglibertarian on August 6, 2009 at 4:52 PM
Democrat Congressman: “I’ll take a few questions now”.
Concerned Citizen: “Why will the Obama plan prevent private insurance from accepting new clients after it’s signed”?
Democrat Congressman: Traitor! You thug! You want to bring down the President! Union guards … take this man out!”
darwin on August 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM
Harry, I’m going to move to Nevada just to vote against you!
skree on August 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM
Where have you been?
Speedwagon82 on August 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM
Displacement is a defense mechanism. The reids are trying to demonize the insurance industry and make them a target and common enemy with us. No we should side with the medical fields and see our common enemy is the gubment.
Taking it further, when we have a fine economy, companies pad insurance and services to entice hiring employees. With high unemployment, insurance products are not need to attract tallent.
seven on August 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM
I buy all my cloths at Brooks Brothers, can someone help me as to some other place to buy men’s cloths so I can attend a local town meeting without being put on a hit list? Never-mind…Patches Kennedy is not having any town meetings, guess I will have to go bar hopping to find him.
Wade on August 6, 2009 at 4:53 PM
How about the entire democratic contingent railing against those “evil” oil companies.
ICBM on August 6, 2009 at 4:54 PM
I remember that it was the Dems who had a “You Tube” debate.
They debated with a sock!
hippieforlife on August 6, 2009 at 4:54 PM
And we can spot a D***head.
guntotinglibertarian on August 6, 2009 at 4:54 PM
No, it’s left-overs from Nancy’s Brazilian wax.
SouthernGent on August 6, 2009 at 4:54 PM
I guess his campaign to delegitimize Rush Limbaugh worked so well, he had to try it on the insurance companies!
rockmom on August 6, 2009 at 4:55 PM
I heard that too ;) He also said he was proud to be one of Rush’s Capos.
Ugly on August 6, 2009 at 4:55 PM
Ok, one last time. The Democrats have the votes to pass this, whether we like it, or not. Blue dogs have issues with it, without their concessions, and far lefties want those concessions left alone, or they threaten to pull their support, and votes for it. Where in this, when Dems have the majority, are the Republicans stopping, impeding, or blocking this bill from being voted on?
Reid, maybe it’s time to retire. And anyone on the left that believes the trip Reid, Pelosi , or any other power hungry lefty is spewing…read between the lines. People do NOT want government so intrusive in their health care, and lives. Period!!! I will even go out on a limb and say the arguments, and opposition to this, is bipartisan among those of us opposing this.
So take a deep breath, think with your brains for a change, and realize, this could be a done deal. Now ask Reid, why it’s not? Cause it sure as hell isn’t because of what Republicans are doing, or not doing.
capejasmine on August 6, 2009 at 4:55 PM
Now, I totally get why dudes become gay.
lorien1973 on August 6, 2009 at 4:56 PM
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