CNN has a story up on its site, the headline of which reads: “GOP terrorism ad sparks Democratic furor.”
The first grafs read …
Republicans took a page from President Johnson’s Cold War-era presidential campaign with an advertisement set to air this weekend called “The Stakes,” which prominently features al Qaeda leaders threatening to kill Americans.
“Just like in the Cold War, the reality is that our nation is at war with an ideology and not a country,” said Republican National Committee spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt.
Democrats, however, have called the commercial, which is reminiscent of Johnson’s 1964 “Daisy” ad, a “desperate ploy to once again try to scare voters.”
The advertisement, which is available on the Republican National Committee Web site, is scheduled to run on national news networks Sunday. Republicans are emphasizing national security and terrorism issues in their bid to maintain control of Congress with about two weeks before the November midterms.
The answer to this is not outrage. And the answer’s not to say this sort of ad is out of bounds. The correct answer is contempt and ridicule. The president and his party just don’t have any credibility on this issue left. And Democrats need to act with the confidence that voters know that too.
DHS is run like a joke.
Iraq, unquestionably, has increased the threat of terrorism rather than diminished it.
The president’s whole approach to protecting the nation is a bust. He’s spent hundreds of billions and thousands of lives on threats that didn’t exist and ignored ones that did.
Doing some more cut and paste of bin Laden just doesn’t cut it any more.
The key here is the meta-message behind the way the fight between Republicans and Democrats plays out. Do Democrats cower and complain? Or do they treat the president’s gambits on national security with contempt, since that’s actually the latent view of the majority of the country. This is another example of what a couple years ago I called the Republicans’ Bitch-Slap theory of electoral politics.
Folks in the country know there’s a bin Laden. They remember 9/11. That’s not what this is about. The Republicans are trying to bait Democrats into looking weak by crying foul and expressing outrage. The best response politically is the truest substantively: ridicule and contempt. The president’s policies on national security have been a joke. The country knows it. They’re there. So just say it.
