When Larry was confronted by "UWTB" with the bare fact that he (Larry Kissell) had endorsed the Military Commissions Act in his 2006 debate with his Republican opponent Hayes in the comment section of a diary post on Daily Kos, his supporters stepped in for him to deny it. They said UWTB was "spreading bullshit" and "lying like a Republican." They accused UWTB of being "negative" and "smearing Larry," saying that UWTB "ought to be ashamed" for "twisting" Larry's statement and using it "out of context" and to "shut the hell up."
It wasn't enough for them to attack the truthfulness of the statement, they felt compelled to take it down a notch; they launched into a virtual tirade filled with hostility, name-calling, mockery, and vicious ad hominem attacks on his current progressive Democratic opponent (John Autry).
They called Mr. Autry "odd," an "unstable hack," and an "alcoholic," among other false and nasty accusations (even though UWTB wasn't engaging in the same kind of mean and nasty ad hominem attacks against their candidate Larry). Larry's supporters had simply been confronted with the truth and they weren't taking it very well. They didn't seem to be capable of civil or reasoned debate about the issue that had been presented.
They even went so far as to bring Mr. Autry's wife into it, feigning concern about her embarrassment and shame.
It went on like this for awhile in two sections of the comment thread, but there was one post in particular that stood out for me. The person using the name "Rant" said; "Put it on his website and send a press release how John wants gays to climb the fence from Mexico and get married on our tax dollars by an Atheist clerk of court."
Now let me try to put this in perspective....
I'm fairly certain that these people personally attacking John Autry and UWTB, instead of defending their man's position, are long-time Kissell supporters. In fact, I'm fairly certain I know who they are (especially since they sometimes call each other by their real names when they make comments to each other on the Kissell posts) and that they have been actively working with the Kissell campaign since 2005 and/or early 2006. They have been trying to sell their candidate as a progressive to progressive groups locally, and especially to the progressive Daily Kos crowd, to obtain their support and $$, but they are not nearly as "progressive" as they make themselves out to be.
Exhibit A is the flash movie above, proving the initial statement by UWTB that Kissell endorsed the Military Commissions Act. I was able to obtain the whole debate and I excerpted the entire segment where the Military Commissions Act was discussed. I decided to include the whole segment so that no one could accuse me of "twisting" anything or taking anything "out of context." I made sure to include the initial question about it through to where the moderator began to ask the next (and last) question, so people could see it was the whole segment. Now anyone can watch it and decide for themselves who was lying and who was telling the truth.
Exhibit B is how they responded to the truthful charge. If these people were working within the campaign or even if they were just longtime supporters, shouldn't they have known what their candidate's position was on something as important as the Military Commissions Act? I have to wonder which is worse, not knowing what their candidate's position was or lying about it. What were they doing when they were responding to UWTB? Were they lying or ignorant? How could they accuse UWTB of "lying" or "twisting" things "out of context" if they were merely ignorant and not lying themselves?
But it was the type of response that they gave that brings the point home. They used right-wing tactics to make their argument; name-calling, mockery, hostility, and ad hominem attacks rather than engage in a civil debate about the topic in question. But more directly, what "progressive" would say something like "Rant" said? Here it is again; "Put it on his website and send a press release how John wants gays to climb the fence from Mexico and get married on our tax dollars by an Atheist clerk of court." What has Rant got against gays and atheists? That sounds like the kind of put-down an extreme right-winger would make, certainly not something a true progressive (and probably not many Democrats) would say.
So how "progressive" is Larry and his group really?
Just so everyone here knows that I'm not making any of this up, here is the link to the diary post if anyone wants to read it for themselves; http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/6/29/85242/4144.
The sections I'm talking about come from two different places on the comment thread. The first one starts approximately 40 - 45% down the page.
See additional evidence about Larry's not so "progressive" nature below.
