Not to belabor the point, but yesterday’s discussion(s) throughout the political world about Rudy Giuliani’s latest attack on Dems not only captured everyone’s attention, but also led to a gut-check moment for Dems — Republicans are coming at us with the same talking points they’ve used for years. Are Dems ready? Do they have a compelling response?
Yesterday, Kevin Drum reminded Dems not to “whine,” while Josh Marshall stressed the importance of not telegraphing weakness. Sure, Republicans are questioning Dems’ patriotism, and anxious to scare the public into thinking the GOP can save their lives, but calling them on it is inherently a defensive move.
Playing offense looks something like this:
Democrats should just hit right back on how President Bush has been helping Osama bin Laden for almost six years. Sounds harsh. But it’s true. Consider the facts. President Bush had bin Laden trapped in the mountains of Tora Bora. But he let bin Laden get away because Bush wanted to focus on Saddam Hussein instead. The president and the White House tried to lie about this during the 2004 election. But since then the evidence has become overwhelming. President Bush decided to let bin Laden get away so he could get ready to attack Saddam Hussein. So pretty much anything bin Laden does from here on out is on President Bush. And how about Iraq? President Bush has screwed things up so badly that he’s created a whole new generation of recruits for bin Laden. He’s created a whole new army for bin Laden. Not by being tough but by being stupid. And by being too much of a coward to admit his mistakes once it was obvious that the occupation of Iraq was helping bin Laden specifically and the jihadist agenda in general.
After half a decade, the verdict is pretty clear: President Bush has been the biggest ally Osama bin Laden has. He’s helped bin Laden at pretty much every turn — even if only by his own stupidity, incompetence and cowardice. And when the next big terrorist attack comes, we can thank President Bush for helping make it happen.
I suspect most conservatives and Bush supporters are aware of this reality, which is one of the reasons they get so hysterical about calling Dems weak — if they bang the table loud enough, people might forget they’re projecting their faults onto their rivals.
Paul Krugman explained this quite well way back in July 2004, imagining what a president would look like if fundamentalist terrorists chose “as their puppet president a demagogue who poses as the nation’s defender against terrorist evildoers.” And sure enough, the character looked quite a bit like Bush.
After an attack, he would strike back at the terrorist base, a necessary action to preserve his image of toughness, but botch the follow-up, allowing the terrorist leaders to escape. Once the public’s attention shifted, he would systematically squander the military victory: committing too few soldiers, reneging on promises of economic aid. Soon, warlords would once again rule most of the country, the heroin trade would be booming, and terrorist allies would make a comeback.
Meanwhile, he would lead America into a war against a country that posed no imminent threat. He would insinuate, without saying anything literally false, that it was somehow responsible for the terrorist attack. This unnecessary war would alienate our allies and tie down a large part of our military. At the same time, the Arabian candidate would neglect the pursuit of those who attacked us, and do nothing about regimes that really shelter anti-American terrorists and really are building nuclear weapons.
Again, he would take care to squander a military victory. The Arabian candidate and his co-conspirators would block all planning for the war’s aftermath; they would arrange for our army to allow looters to destroy much of the country’s infrastructure. Then they would disband the defeated regime’s army, turning hundreds of thousands of trained soldiers into disgruntled potential insurgents.
After this it would be easy to sabotage the occupied country’s reconstruction, simply by failing to spend aid funds or rein in cronyism and corruption. Power outages, overflowing sewage and unemployment would swell the ranks of our enemies.
Who knows? The Arabian candidate might even be able to deprive America of the moral high ground, no mean trick when our enemies are mass murderers, by creating a climate in which U.S. guards torture, humiliate and starve prisoners, most of them innocent or guilty of only petty crimes.
At home, the Arabian candidate would leave the nation vulnerable, doing almost nothing to secure ports, chemical plants and other potential targets. He would stonewall investigations into why the initial terrorist attack succeeded. And by repeatedly issuing vague terror warnings obviously timed to drown out unfavorable political news, his officials would ensure public indifference if and when a real threat is announced.
Last but not least, by blatantly exploiting the terrorist threat for personal political gain, he would undermine the nation’s unity in the face of its enemies, sowing suspicion about the government’s motives.
In the context of 2008, of course, Bush isn’t running — but Republicans who support his efforts are. Giuliani, McCain, and Romney are quite proud of telling voters that when it comes to counter-terrorism and foreign policy, they’re anxious to pick up where Bush leaves off. They’ll keep America “safe” and “strong” by following the very policies that have undermined our security and weakened the country overall.
It’s really quite simple: Republican foreign policy has it backwards. It’s making us less secure and increasing the danger for us and our allies.
Way back in September, the National Intelligence Estimate made quite clear that the war in Iraq has increased the threat of terrorism. Glenn Greenwald argued that Dems could simply take the straight newspaper account of the NIE and “air it over and over and over every single day as much as possible until November 7.” Digby noted how effective this would be: “Bush’s Iraq adventure has put this country in much more danger than it was and for no good reason. If people believe terrorism is a serious threat, then these Republicans are the last people they should trust.”
All of this still applies. The next time Giuliani pops off, Dems might want to keep it in mind.