I have to admit, I’m frequently surprised at what drives the right to apoplexy. Last week, it was a NYT piece about the Maryland town where Cheney and Rumsfeld bought weekend homes. This week, it’s a [tag]DCCC[/tag] web [tag]video[/tag] that laments the crises that [tag]Republicans[/tag] have mismanaged in recent years, and includes an image of [tag]caskets[/tag] of U.S. soldiers coming home.
“It makes my stomach turn to see national Democrats so blatantly exploit the sacrifices made by the men and women of our armed forces,” said National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman [tag]Tom Reynolds[/tag] (R-N.Y.).
Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), Steny Hoyer (Md.) and [tag]Rahm Emanuel[/tag] (Ill.) “should be ashamed of themselves for appearing in this video,” he added.
You can see the video for yourself; there’s nothing in it that strikes me as the least bit over-the-top and I’m hard-pressed to understand exactly what Republicans are so worked up about.
First, Republicans complained that Dems were trying to raise money off the video. That’s false; the video was distributed without a request for donations. Second, Republicans said [tag]coffins[/tag] should not appear in political videos, but as Nitpicker noted, the very first Bush-Cheney ’04 campaign ad two years ago featured an image of caskets of firefighters from 9/11. When the [tag]Bush[/tag] gang uses these images in a TV ad, it’s in good taste, and when the DCCC uses a similar image in a web video, it’s offensive?
As Roll Call reported, the DCCC, to its credit, isn’t backing down in the face of Republican complaints. While Reynolds insists that the video “crosses the line” and “Rahm Emanuel owes our troops, their families, and the families of the fallen an apology,” the DCCC hit back.
“Republicans have gone to great lengths to obscure the pictures of these brave young men and women who come home having paid the ultimate sacrifice,” [DCCC Communications Director Bill] Burton said. “Perhaps if these Republicans had been able to summon up this same level of outrage when President Bush sent our troops off to war without the body armor they needed and the Humvee armor they required, so many wouldn’t have come home in flag-draped coffins or with life-changing injuries.”
For reasons that are not altogether clear, the Republicans feel like they’ve latched onto something here and they’re not letting go. The House Republican Conference announced yesterday that it would hold a press conference this afternoon in the lobby of the RNC headquarters to “discuss the despicable [tag]fundraising[/tag] video” created by the DCCC.
If the Republicans’ complaints cause more people to see the video, I imagine the DCCC will be thrilled.