{"id":6701,"date":"2006-02-24T11:11:13","date_gmt":"2006-02-24T16:11:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=6701"},"modified":"2006-02-24T11:11:13","modified_gmt":"2006-02-24T16:11:13","slug":"seizing-the-port","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/seizing-the-port\/","title":{"rendered":"Seizing the port"},"content":{"rendered":"

Call it opportunism, exploitation, or just common-sense politics in an election year, but the Dem campaign committees are milking the Dubai Ports World controversy for all it’s worth<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turning the Republicans’ mantra from the 2002 and 2004 campaign cycles on its head, the DCCC Wednesday blasted Republicans for being held to a “pre-9\/11” mindset while Democrats have developed a “post-9\/11” worldview in which security issues are a top priority.<\/p>\n

“Democrats have a post-9\/11 worldview and many Republicans have a pre-9\/11 worldview,” DCCC communications director Bill Burton said in a statement. “Democrats think it is wrong to trust a state that recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, Republicans think it’s right. That doesn’t make them unpatriotic, but it does make them wrong — deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong.”<\/p>\n

The DCCC also released summaries of several roll call votes over the last five years that they say show Republicans have consistently voted against port security upgrades and funding increases.<\/p>\n

Republican campaign officials dismissed the attacks as crass partisanship.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Well, maybe so. But as Kevin noted<\/a> the other day, “Given the Republican Party’s five-year effort to caricature liberals as panty-waisted Osama lovers for doing nothing more than holding positions startlingly similar to Bush’s on the Dubai port deal, we would need to be veritable saints not to get a frisson of pleasure from holding their feet to the fire over this. It’s time for the modern GOP to get a taste of its own dog food.”<\/p>\n

And so, we’re not saints. We’re a minority party in an election year that has been unfairly smeared, is genuinely less-than-pleased about a controversial port deal, and which sees an opportunity to remind voters that the GOP caricature of the Dems is absurd. Isn’t this what Dems should<\/i> do? Just as importantly, isn’t this what Republicans would do if President Kerry or President Gore offered them a similar scenario?<\/p>\n

One order of Alpo, coming up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Call it opportunism, exploitation, or just common-sense politics in an election year, but the Dem campaign committees are milking the Dubai Ports World controversy for all it’s worth. Turning the Republicans’ mantra from the 2002 and 2004 campaign cycles on its head, the DCCC Wednesday blasted Republicans for being held to a “pre-9\/11” mindset while […]<\/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-6701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701","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=6701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6701\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}