{"id":6429,"date":"2006-01-24T15:22:22","date_gmt":"2006-01-24T20:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6429"},"modified":"2006-01-24T15:22:22","modified_gmt":"2006-01-24T20:22:22","slug":"if-we-know-what-play-theyre-going-to-call-shouldnt-we-able-to-stop-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/if-we-know-what-play-theyre-going-to-call-shouldnt-we-able-to-stop-it\/","title":{"rendered":"If we know what play they’re going to call, shouldn’t we able to stop it?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, Salon’s Walter Shapiro spoke with several Dem insiders<\/a> who lamented the fact that the party was going after Bush on his warrantless-search program, fearing that it would keep the political debate exactly where the White House wants it — with an emphasis on national security, Bush’s alleged strength.<\/p>\n

The WaPo’s E. J. Dionne Jr., in the column of the day, explains that these insiders have everything backwards<\/a>. Karl Rove has told the Dems where Republicans are going to go — the message is: “Republicans are tough on our enemies, Democrats are not. If you don’t want to get blown up, vote Republican” — and it’s up to Dems to deal with the telegraphed punch.<\/p>\n

The typical Democratic consultant says: “Hey, national security is a Republican issue. We shouldn’t engage on that. We should change the subject.” In the 2002 elections, the surefire Democratic winners were a prescription drug benefit under Medicare (an issue Bush tried to steal), a patients’ bill of rights, the economy and education. Those issues sure worked wonders, didn’t they?<\/p>\n

By not engaging the national security debate, Democrats cede to Rove the power to frame it. Consider that clever line about Democrats having a pre-Sept. 11 view of the world. The typical Democratic response would be defensive: “No, no, of course 9\/11 changed the world.” More specifically, there’s a lot of private talk among Democrats that the party should let go of the issue of warrantless spying on Americans because the polls show that a majority values security and safety.<\/p>\n

What Democrats should have learned is that they cannot evade the security debate. They must challenge the terms under which Rove and Bush would conduct it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s exactly right. Too often, the refrain from Dems is, “But voters are with us on the issues.” To a real extent, this is largely true. But if the electorate thinks Bush and the GOP will do a better job than Dems in keeping the country safe, the other issues simply don’t matter nearly as much as the consultants would like.<\/p>\n

The one part of this dynamic that’s so frustrating is Bush’s record on national security issues is really bad<\/i>. I know, it’s a well-kept secret, but it’s true.<\/p>\n

We’re talking about an administration that largely ignored Clinton’s advice about dealing al Qaeda; didn’t take the “bin Laden determined to strike inside U.S.” memo seriously; invaded Afghanistan but failed to follow through on our commitments; can’t catch bin Laden; launched a devastating war in Iraq that has increased the terrorist threat; watched the nuclear threat posed by North Korea and Iran get considerably worse; leaked classified information for partisan gain; and launched an illegal surveillance program that produced a flood of useless tips.<\/p>\n

The only people who should<\/i> be afraid of this record are Republicans who expect to run for re-election alongside this unpopular president. Dems have some compelling issues going for them — Abramoff and Medicare among them — but there’s no reason in the world to cede national security ground to the GOP.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Salon’s Walter Shapiro spoke with several Dem insiders who lamented the fact that the party was going after Bush on his warrantless-search program, fearing that it would keep the political debate exactly where the White House wants it — with an emphasis on national security, Bush’s alleged strength. The WaPo’s E. J. Dionne […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}