Bush, the Telecomm Hitler
Charles Johnson
Sun Apr 24, 2005 at 2:30 pm PDT • Views: 319
Here’s a story at TIME Magazine saying that the Bush administration has bumped several delegates to an international telecommunications meeting in Guatemala, because they were Kerry supporters: Any Kerry Supporters On The Line?
The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week’s meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry’s 2004 campaign.
The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush’s second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.
The White House admits as much: “We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and—call us nutty—it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that,” says White House spokesman Trent Duffy.
The left-of-center blogosphere doesn’t just call it “nutty,” though. Over there in the fever swamp this is fascist repression of free speech, and cause for impeachment. Oh brother.
Frank says: