Sunday, January 01, 2006

Did I Miss Something?

Here's Kevin Drum's take on the politics of the illegal wire tapping done by Bush. Remember, Kevin is on our side:
This whole thing is kind of depressing, isn't it? I don't mean in just the obvious sense, but also in the sense that this issue seems like such a clear loser for Democrats. Once again the president will be allowed to paint this as an issue of either wholeheartedly supporting the fight against terrorism or else being one of those whiny liberals who's allied with Osama in all but name. That the real issue is that Bush secretly broke the law instead of getting congressional authorization for it — which would have been a slam dunk for any remotely reasonable program — will end up lost in a whirlwind of the jingoistic bloviating we've come to expect from Fox News and Dick Cheney.
Huh?

Let's see. The President performs an impeachable offense and the best Kevin Drum can see is that Dems will be painted as whiny? Granted, at times the Dems have been quite adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. But isn't Kevin pretty much repeating, in fact expanding, on G.O.P. talking points? And excuse me Kevin, but isn't your response just the type of analysis that leads to the outcome you predict?

When are "centrists" Democrats gonna get it. It's not the issue. It's how you message the issue. Sure, if Democrats go around citing federal code in cool analytical tones, they'll come across like wimps. But what happens if we let Paul "Bush is a son-of-a-bitch" Hackett give the Democratic response? Suppose Dems spend some pundit time incensed at the Constitutional violations, outraged at the breaches on privacy for ordinary Americans. Just suppose the Dems respond aggressively to Bush's illegal activities?

I know this may be outside the DLC/Bob Shrum playbook. But then again, it's time for a new team anyway.

5 Comments:

At 8:03 PM, Blogger mikevotes said...

It's like that sad friend in highschool with the self esteem problem.

Mike

 
At 9:15 PM, Blogger Alexander Wolfe said...

To be fair he's not saying that this isn't an issue that Democrats shouldn't attack on. He's merely predicting that yet again, regardless of the scale of the outrage, Bush and his apologists will attack Democrats as being weak on national security and the "war on terror" because they think there is something wrong with the NSA program. I don't think he's repeating the Republican talking points, so much as he's predicting what will happen...which sounds pretty accurate to me. I happen to think this is an issue that Democrats should hit, but to think the GOP won't attack Dems in such fashion or that people won't buy the GOP talking points, is being optimistic.

 
At 8:11 AM, Blogger Lynne said...

I agree with you about Hackett. Let someone like Hackett or Feingold frame the response.
And liberals, stop giving up before the fight has commenced! Stop wallowing in such defeatist thoughts! THAT is what makes Dems whiney.

 
At 9:04 AM, Blogger greyhair said...

What Lynne said....

 
At 5:00 AM, Blogger Deb said...

I had the same reaction reading the article, finding it hard to believe that he would print that and then not print some way to prevent it.

I've kind of wandered away from the big guys for just that reason. Between their levels of anger and depression it makes it hard to get rational thinking from them sometimes. This is a story that quite a few Americans "get" and they aren't happy. I rant about DINO's all the time, we need new leadership or things will never change.

 

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