"Its all the Dems fault" headed editorial section in the Virginian Pilot

[rainy]

Under the heading:"Its the Democrats who got us into this mess" two people wrote in letters blaming all this mess on the Dems:
One said that the following was done on the Dems' watch; enemies bombed our ship, our foreign embassy, the building in Oklahoma and the World Trade Center the first time. Then we had four planes bomb the WTC again as well as the Pentagon..... It took four years of planning to do this and it was all done on the Dems' watch. We lost thousands in Vietnam, on liberals' watch."

It was sickening and we also had very anti-Lebanon cartoons and articles today in the commentary section.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. "During the Dem's watch" The Dems were busy watching the Republicans

launch an all out media blitz against our popularly elected president in the 90s. Some may have called it treason.

[Demit]

2. Bleh. My sympathies. I only have to contend with the sappy centrism of

the Phila Inquirer. They do compensate with Trudy Rubin though. She had a great column today on how Bush & Rice are out of touch on ME issues and need to get a clue.

[dave123williams]

3. Well, the stupid have to read *something*.

[tanyev]

4. Errrr...OK. They've had 6 years to fix it.

How's that working out?

[Bretttido]

6. Stop using logic!

Why do you hate America?

[tanyev]

12. Sorry! My bad.

:spank:

[WePurrsevere]

16. Right & which party held the majority for most of the years before that

when they could have fixed and worked on things other then whether Clinton lied about getting a BJ (but didn't)?
Hmm... let's see...
The Republican's have been the majority in the House for 12 yrs.
They held a majority in the Senate from 1995 through 2001 (except for about 3 weeks after a Vermont Republican left the party to become an Independent).

Resources: Senate Majority Info
House Majority Info

[fasttense]

5. Will repubs ever, in their entire lives, take responsibility for

anything they do? Well, of course not. It so much easier and simpler to blame others. Typical irresponsible criminals that they are.

[madame defarge]

7. Well of course it is...

Nothing is ever the Repugs fault. Ever. They're perfect. :sarcasm:

I do hope you'll be writing a response to those letters, eh?

[acmejack]

10. They're will to go back a far as they have to.

They're still blaming stuff on FDR.

[pepperbear]

13. AND don't forget the "let's censure Jimmy Carter" campaign. n/t

[theHandpuppet]

8. And the bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut?

Ronnie Raygun.

[Baselinereality]

9. As Long As It Wasn't Said It Was All Clinton's Fault...

I guess that it's progress, in a way.

Probably don't have the heart to point out the the Beirut bombing was on Reagan's watch, as well as PanAm Flight 103.

Tit for tat is such a distracting li'l game. How on earth are we going to wrest control of the country out of the hands of the fundamentalists, that's what I want to know.

And who do we have that is a really good, realistic diplomat?

Man, I hope when America finds her ideals again it's not too late.

[alfredo]

11. Do a point by point rebuttal. Come here if you need help

with research and the finer points if needed. We will do what we can to help.

I'm sure we can slice and dice their arguments.

BTW, adults take responsibility, they don't try to pass it on to others.



Here's my reply to the authoritarian party lies

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1745051&mesg_id=1745051

[Emit]

14. Here's a start for that rebuttal

Something I save for these purposes. It doesn't address all the issues in the OP, but it's a good start.

President Clinton led the fight against terrorism over strong opposition from Republicans in Congress and the pro-Republican Media.

Here's a partial list of accomplishments against terrorism for which the Clinton Administration gets almost no credit or even recognition. President Clinton:

-- sent legislation to Congress to TIGHTEN AIRPORT SECURITY. (Remember, this is before 911) The legislation was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the airlines.
-- sent legislation to Congress to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF TERRORIST FUNDING. It was defeated by Republicans in the Senate because of opposition from banking interests.
-- sent legislation to Congress to add tagents to explosives, to allow for BETTER TRACKING OF EXPLOSIVES USED BY TERRORISTS. It was defeated by the Republicans because of opposition from the NRA.

When Republicans couldn't prevent executive action, President Clinton:
-- Developed the nation's first anti-terrorism policy, and appointed first national coordinator.
-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up 12 U.S. jetliners simultaneously.
-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up UN Headquarters.
-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up FBI Headquarters.
-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the Israeli Embassy in Washington.
--Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Boston airport.
-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up Lincoln and Holland Tunnels in NY.
-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the George Washington Bridge.
-- Stopped cold the planned attack to blow up the US Embassy in Albania.
-- Tried to kill Osama bin Laden and disrupt Al Qaeda through preemptive strikes (efforts denounced by the G.O.P.).
-- Brought perpetrators of first World Trade Center bombing and CIA killings to justice.
-- Did not blame Bush I administration for first World Trade Center bombing even though it occurred 38 days after they had left office. Instead, worked hard, even obsessively--and successfully--to stop future terrorist attacks.
-- Named the Hart-Rudman commission to report on nature of terrorist threats and major steps to be taken to combat terrorism.
-- Tripled the budget of the FBI for counterterrorism and doubled overall funding for counterterrorism.
-- Detected and destroyed cells of Al Qaeda in over 20 countries
-- Created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines including 40 million doses of smallpox vaccine.
-- Robert Oakley, Reagan Counterterrorism Czar says of Clinton's efforts "Overall, I give them very high marks" and "The only major criticism I have is the obsession with Osama"
-- Paul Bremer, Bush's Administrator of Iraq disagrees slightly with Robert Oakley saying he believed the Clinton Administration had "correctly focused on bin Laden. "
-- Barton Gellman of the Washington Post put it best, "By any measure available, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him" and was the "first administration to undertake a systematic anti-terrorist effort."


Here, in stark contrast, is part of the Bush-Cheney anti-terrorism record before September 11, 2001:
-- Backed off Clinton administration's anti-terrorism efforts.
-- Shelved the Hart-Rudman report.
-- Appointed new anti-terrorism task force under Dick Cheney. Group did not even meet before 9/11.
-- Called for cuts in anti-terrorism efforts by the Department of Defense.
-- Gave no priority to anti-terrorism efforts by Justice Department.
-- Ignored warnings from Sandy Berger, Louis Freeh, George Tennant, Paul Bremer, and Richard Clarke about the urgency of terrorist threats.
-- Halted Predator drone tracking of Osama bin Laden.
-- Did nothing in wake of August 6 C.I.A. report to president saying Al Qaeda attack by hijack of an airliner almost certain.
-- Bush - knowing about the terrorists' plans to attack in America, warned that terrorists were in flight schools in the US - took a four week vacation.
-- By failing to order any coordination of intelligence data, missed opportunity to stop the 9/11 plot as Clinton-Gore had stopped the millennium plots.
-- Blamed President Clinton for 9/11.

From: © Copyright 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 by MikeHersh.com and identified authors. MikeHersh.com invites you to broadcast any material at this site, provided you identify the source as MikeHersh.com. All print, Internet, email and other summaries, excerpts or other written reproductions must include this blurb and a link to http://www.MikeHersh.com.
http://www.mikehersh.com/Clinton_vs_Terror_Republicans_vs_Clinton.shtml

[alfredo]

17. Excellent!!!! Just what is needed.

[rainy]

18. thanks, I sent this to the editors for their information.

[Strawman]

15. Republicans really have no idea how to govern, only blame

Even if they have to just make shit up. If they fuck up, blame some outgroup.

[marmar]

19. Is that paper's editorial section usually a BushCo whore?

That all sounds like a very deliberate layout on the part of some very zealous right-wing opinion page editor.

[katamaran]

20. I think they've slanted more to the right in the past year or so...

They got a new editor about a year ago and he came right out and said "the paper tends to have a liberal slant, and we're going to make it more centrist." They added a new syndicated cartoonist, Michael Ramirez, who is VERY Republican and very offensive to me, and they run him every other day. So this guy gets 3 or four cartoons a week, and Oliphant, Peters, Toles and Luckovitch have to fight it out for the rest of the days. I'd also say the syndicated columnists tend to run 3-2 Republican. The anti-Bush letters tend to get one or two paragraphs in the editorial mix, while the editorial letter spotlight tends to be really long Republican letters.