Looking ahead to [tag]November[/tag], [tag]Republicans[/tag] seem to have settled on a [tag]talking point[/tag] that they can all agree on and which they consider a political winner.
[tag]Elizabeth Dole[/tag] sounded desperate last week. Trying to inspire dispirited Republicans, the head of the party’s Senatorial Campaign Committee wrote a fund-raising letter urging the GOP faithful to rally, because if Democrats seize power they will “call for endless [tag]investigations[/tag], congressional [tag]censure[/tag] and maybe even [tag]impeachment[/tag] of President Bush.” It’s a sad truth of politics that if you can’t inspire your voters with a positive vision, you scare them.
To be sure, this has come to dominate GOP talking points. Lawmakers, the RNC, and others are all emphasizing the threat a [tag]Democratic[/tag] [tag]Congress[/tag] represents to [tag]Bush[/tag]. But this scare tactic not only deserves more scrutiny; it also sounds kind of familiar.
I understand that Republicans don’t have much left in the way of policies, ethics, or competence, so the GOP is stuck running around screaming, “They’ll impeach Bush!” in order to convince voters not to vote for Dems. So far, Dems seem to believe this is a legitimate concern, so, for the most part, they’re publicly arguing that they have no intention of using their subpoena power to pursue an aggressive investigative agenda.
I assume the [tag]GOP[/tag] has some polling data to suggest this is a salient argument, and it seems likely most Americans don’t want 2007 and 2008 dominated by anything they might consider partisan witch hunts, but these “Dems = Investigations” argument strikes me as a little bizarre for two reasons.
One, as Josh Marshall recently noted, is the idea that Republicans have a great deal to fear from congressional oversight.
That is the election, at least from the vantage point of the White House and the party they control. The president can’t afford to lose either house of Congress. Because they’ve just got too many bad acts and secrets to conceal.
I agree, but I’d take this one step further.
Consider, again, what Liddy Dole warned of: congressional investigations, possible censure, and impeachment. Sound familiar?
It seems to me the biggest fear Republicans have right now is that Democrats will win a majority in November — and they’ll act like Republicans. And they can’t have that.
For the better part of 12 years, the GOP has run Congress with the assumption that they’d be there awhile. They held hearings every time [tag]Clinton[/tag] sneezed and eventually even impeached him, despite opposition from the electorate. Republicans in both chambers believed it was their solemn duty to show up for work every day and make the White House as miserable as humanly possible. Congressional investigations were simply a staple of Hill life in the late 1990s, whether the situation warranted it or not. Given a choice between investigating vs. governing, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, Dan Burton, and Dick Armey didn’t hesitate.
Now that they’re genuinely concerned about losing control, and they’re looking at Rahm Emanuel’s payback’s-a-bitch smirk, Republicans’ last-ditch effort is to convince people that Dems might do to Bush what they did to Clinton. It’s as cynical and shallow an argument as they could come up with, but apparently it’s all they’ve got left.
Dems, to this point, have been on the defensive about this, arguing that they promise to play nice if and when they’re back in the majority. This strikes me as unnecessary. I wouldn’t put articles of impeachment in the parties’ midterm agenda, but it seems to me the simple retort to GOP fear mongering is for Pelosi, et al, to say, “Are Republicans afraid we’ll act like them?”