Trash-Talking Fear-Mongers

It’s been a rough week for Republican operatives. They just can’t seem to hold back the bile, dishonesty and spin that flows whenever they open their mouths.

Potential GOP Presidential candidate George Allen greeted a worker from a rival campaign with racial epithets, using angry and demeaning language in front of a gathered crowd in Virginia. Though he apologized for the slur, Allen’s tone was mean, crude and humorless--not exactly a Presidential performance.

And Vice President Dick Cheney crawled out of his dark hole this week to stoke the embers of fear, suggesting that supporters of Connecticut Democrat Ned Lamont were supporters of al Qaeda. In the past, a spineless press might have looked the other way, but with the administration’s Iraq policy in shreds, the press finally described Cheney’s comments for what they were--hyperbolic, insulting, divisive and manipulative. What took them so long?

Media neo-con Mort Zuckerman’s latest op-ed in US News echoed the failed policies Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Libby, Rove and others. Has he learned nothing? He stated:

“Israel must continue to press its attack on Hezbollah until the terrorist threat is removed.”

Just like we must continue the war on terror until the terror threat is "removed"? Which is to say, never. Trying to kill every terrorist is a ridiculous and impossible goal. If Israel wants to feel completely and perfectly safe from Hezbollah, they will need to kill every Muslim in Lebanon. Somehow, I suspect ethnic cleansing isn’t a policy they want to pursue. How about you, Mort?

But perhaps the largest foot inserted into the biggest mouth belonged to Ken Mehlman, chairman of the RNC. On Meet The Press last weekend, the subject of November elections prompted Mehlman to declare:

“...the fundamental question Americans are going to have to answer is, “Do you believe we’re at war?”

Duh. Everybody believes we’re at war. But many Americans don't believe the Bush team is still at war with Osama Bin Laden. Instead, that war has been sidetracked by Cheney and others for deeper, more sinister purposes in oil-rich Iraq, which had little to do with jihad terrorism before we invaded.

Regarding the string of misjudgments in Iraq, Mehlman noted that:

“...we face a movement, not a country. It’s harder to beat a movement.”

Unfortunately, it’s impossible to beat a movement with bombs. You can only undermine it with public support and credibility. Ooops. Mehlman’s observation is correct, but the Bush policy response has been entirely wrong.

That doesn’t matter now, contends Mehlman, playing the 9/11 card:

“We know that 9/11 taught us how dangerous it was when you had a failed state in Afghanistan. Imagine a failed state on the second-largest oil reserves in the world.”

We don’t need to imagine. Despite our troops, Iraq is a failed state! Bush's miscalculations and incompetence caused Iraq to fail. And now the same Republicans who screwed it up want us to trust them to clean it up. Come on, Ken. We’re just not that stupid.

Or are we? Perhaps the RNC slogan-of-the-week will undo all the blunders, scandals and misjudgments, inspiring voters to support Republicans again. Can you say “Adapting To Win”? Mehlman can:

“The choice in this election is not between “Stay the course” and “Cut and run,” it’s between “Win by adapting” and “Cut and run.”...The fact is, before the successful Iraqi elections, the number of troops went up from 137,000 to 167,000. That’s adapting to win!”

If by winning Mehlman means fostering anarchy, chaos, torture, kidnappings, executions, assassinations, reprisals and death squads, then we are winning big in Iraq.

But word-games can’t whitewash a catastrophe, and Mehlman’s exhausted, baggy-eyed face tells us everything we need to know about the challenges Republicans face in the upcoming elections. "Adapting" is a hollow claim, and character assassination has lost its traction. The GOP has little left to stand on but tired slogans and the thread-bare assertion that Democrats “don’t stand for anything.”

As long as Democrats don’t stand for dishonesty, incompetence, arrogance, cronyism, favoritism, pay-for-play, narrowness, denial, division and stubbornness, they will likely break the Republican lock on power in Washington. And fortunately, Democrats stand for a lot more than Mehlman and his angry bosses care to acknowlege. When they finally break that lock, a lot of things should change for the better.