LAT op-ed, Jonathan Chait: The Real Anti-Terrorists

[DeepModem Mom]

Jonathan Chait: The Real Anti-Terrorists
Despite the facts, Republicans buy Bush's line that Democrats are soft on terror.
August 20, 2006

SINCE ALMOST immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, Republicans have been saying that the Democratic approach to fighting Islamic radicalism is to curl up in a little ball and hope the bad men go away....This is a wild and vicious caricature, and I assumed it was a cynical right-wing ploy to mislead the public. But recently a horrifying realization has sunk in: They — Republicans, conservatives — really believe this tripe.

The seeds of this realization were sown a few years ago, when I appeared on a right-wing radio talk show. At one point I mentioned to the host that Bush had neglected — or, in some cases, actively suppressed efforts to bolster — homeland security. I had written a lengthy cover story in the New Republic making this point, and not a few Democrats had been harping on the same point. This was the first the show's host had heard of such an argument....

***

...Democrats simply haven't had the platform to disseminate their ideas. They lack control of any branch of government in Washington, so the media ignore their proposals, which have no chance of passing. And they don't have the network of partisan gabbers and propagandists to disseminate their views that conservatives built up when they were out of power. So it's easy for lazy pundits to conclude Democrats simply have no ideas. As "Seinfeld's" George Costanza famously put it: It's not a lie if you believe it.

Yet this belief has had catastrophic consequences. Because conservatives genuinely bought into Bush's view that the only choice was to follow him or coddle the terrorists, they chose to follow him. Thus they have been unwilling to openly question the numerous Bush foreign policy fiascos — from refusing to use U.S. troops to capture Osama bin Laden and his henchmen to failing to plan for the Iraq occupation. If they had raised some questions a couple of years ago, maybe our Middle East policy wouldn't be a shambles. And maybe, come to think of it, their party wouldn't be utterly discredited in the eyes of the public.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-...

[acmejack]

1. I am amazed anyone would put any of Chait's prattle here anymore!

He is a disgusting DLC hack, I suppose that is redundant. Look at last week's piece and see if you Read last week's column & see if you still think he has any remaining legitimacy!

Jonathan Chait: Purely foolish Democrats
Sen. Joe Lieberman's irritating, but his enemies in the party are worse.

NED LAMONT'S challenge to Sen. Joe Lieberman in next month's Connecticut primary has blossomed into a full-scale Democratic civil war. What's at stake is the legitimacy of partisanship.

A good window into the competing mentalities can be found in two arguments, one by prominent Lieberman supporters, the other by a prominent critic. First, the supporters. Writing in the Hartford Courant, Marshall Wittmann and Steven J. Nider of the moderate Democratic Leadership Council complain that "far too many Democrats view George W. Bush as a greater threat to the nation than Osama bin Laden."

Those loony Democrats! But wait, is this really such a crazy view? Even though all but the loopiest Democrat would concede that Bin Laden is more evil than Bush, that doesn't mean he's a greater threat. Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in the mountains, has no weapons of mass destruction and apparently very limited numbers of followers capable of striking at the U.S.

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-chait9jul0...