{"id":7680,"date":"2006-06-14T10:45:47","date_gmt":"2006-06-14T14:45:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7680"},"modified":"2006-06-14T10:45:47","modified_gmt":"2006-06-14T14:45:47","slug":"boehners-idea-of-high-minded-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/boehners-idea-of-high-minded-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"Boehner’s idea of high-minded debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow, lawmakers in the [tag]House[\/tag] will get together for a lengthy [tag]debate[\/tag] on the [tag]war[\/tag] in [tag]Iraq[\/tag], a discussion that Roll Call described<\/a> as “one of [the House’s] most significant debates in several years.” Majority Leader [tag]John Boehner[\/tag] (R-Ohio) told reporters<\/a> that he would like to see the debate take on a “serious, dignified tone.”<\/p>\n

Of course, what Boehner tells reporters and what he tells his GOP caucus are two very different things.<\/p>\n

ThinkProgress has obtained a “[tag]Confidential Messaging Memo[\/tag]<\/a>” from Boehner instructing his caucus to conduct a very different kind of deliberation. Here’s a quick summary:<\/p>\n

1. Exploit 9\/11<\/b>. The two page memo mentions 9\/11 seven times. It describes debating Iraq in the context of [tag]9\/11[\/tag] as “imperative.”<\/p>\n

2. Attack opponents [tag]ad hominem[\/tag]<\/b>. The memo describes those who opposes President Bush’s policies in Iraq as “sheepish,” “weak,” and “prone to waver endlessly.”<\/p>\n

3. Create a false choice<\/b>. The memo says the decision is between supporting President [tag]Bush[\/tag]’s policies and hoping terrorist threats will “fade away on their own.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You mean Boehner and House Republicans want to somehow misuse a high-minded debate to score cheap points? They don’t want to debate war policy, but want to mislead the public and smear their rivals? Who ever could have guessed?<\/p>\n

ThinkProgress posted Boehner’s memo here<\/a> (.pdf). At least we’ll know what to expect tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tomorrow, lawmakers in the [tag]House[\/tag] will get together for a lengthy [tag]debate[\/tag] on the [tag]war[\/tag] in [tag]Iraq[\/tag], a discussion that Roll Call described as “one of [the House’s] most significant debates in several years.” Majority Leader [tag]John Boehner[\/tag] (R-Ohio) told reporters that he would like to see the debate take on a “serious, dignified tone.” […]<\/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-7680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680","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=7680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7680\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}