Democrats Meander in a New New Direction --Millbank WaPo

[Demeter]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/14/AR2006091401575.html?referrer=email&referrer=email&referrer=email


Democrats Meander in a New New Direction

By Dana Milbank
Friday, September 15, 2006; A02



House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, the woman who will become speaker of the House if Democrats get lucky in November, began her weekly news conference yesterday holding up a red-white-and-blue brochure...Among the party's campaign slogans this year: "Culture of Corruption," "Culture of Cronyism," "Do-Nothing Congress," "Rubber-Stamp Congress," "Together, We Can Do Better," "Together, America Can Do Better" and, most recently, "Six for '06." For those keeping score at home, Democrats arrived at "New Direction" yesterday by downgrading one of the "Six for '06" issues (health care) and upgrading three others (honesty, civility and fiscal discipline), for a total of eight items on the contents page.

By contrast, Republicans have settled on a single, unofficial slogan, which essentially says: Vote Democrat and Die. And in politics, scary and scurrilous usually trumps elaborate and earnest -- something Pelosi has experienced firsthand in recent days.


Then came the questions. "This is now the third election in a row in which they've raised security issues just before the election," the first questioner said of the Republicans. "Why won't it work for them a third time?"




The charge enraged Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), who had come to the floor to talk about education.

"America is not tired of fighting terrorism," she retorted. "America is tired of the wrongheaded and boneheaded leadership of the Republican Party that has sent $6.5 billion a month to Iraq when the front line was Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, that led this country to attack Saddam Hussein when we were attacked by Osama bin Laden."

She continued: "And Americans are most certainly tired of leadership that, despite documented mistake after mistake after mistake . . . never admit that they ever do anything wrong."

It was angry and raw. But it was a new direction.

[WCGreen]

1. Go Mary Go Mary Go Mary......

[bluedeminredstate]

2. He's a snarky SOB

From the article: "It was a handsome booklet, full of homey photographs and popular proposals, but there was a problem. Democrats have had more 'New Directions' recently than MapQuest." This is an article that's title describes the Dems as "meandering"
(read: hapless, confused, lame) in a new direction.

My step-sister went to Yale at the same time he did and she said he was the president of the campus progressive organization (don't recall the actual name of said org - sorry). He seems to be running like hell from his past, because he doesn't ever describe the repugs with the same sarcasm and snark he heaps on the Democrats. In the same article he describes the repugs' despicable comments this week with nary a raised eyebrow:
"Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) wondered whether Democrats are 'more interested in protecting terrorists than in protecting the American people.' Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) stood next to a poster of Pelosi and her words about bin Laden and demanded: 'Where do your loyalties lie?' House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said Democrats 'are confused about who the enemy actually is.'

Didn't he get canned from the WH for this snarkiness? I realize the difference - if aimed at the Chimperor it's treasonable, but aimed at the Dems it's just a knee slapper. That's probably why MSNGOP has him on retainer along with W'Orah O'Donnell.

[skip fox]

3. We need good minds to frame our message. Here's one idea:

While the White House and its minions (as on Fox News) push the War on Terror as a way of framing (i.e., "hiding") the Iraq issue for the election, we need people to bring it out of hiding.

Here's one basic approach (I'm sure there are many others):

"Republicans and the administration don't want to run on the mess they made in Iraq, so like a magician they try to distract our attention by covering it under the umbrella of 'A War on Terror,' thereby hiding their blunders from the conception to the execution of the war, from WMD's and Sadam-terrorist's links to the civil war which is now in full progress. It's a GIANT SHELL GAME dreamed up by Rove. We need solutions, not PR tricks or a magician's slight of hand."

Why can't we frame a message simply and compellingly in order to bounce these jokers. Almost all of the important facts are on our side, especially since the Republicians and the administration has been such an obvious failure by almost all standards?

[yurbud]

5. how about connect culture of corruption to Iraq War for oil?

"Everything George W. Bush has done has been about rewarding cronies, and Iraq is no exception. The first thing he did was cancel Saddam's oil contracts with other countries and give them to American corporations. And how did they pay us back for that gift? By demanding more tax breaks, gouging us at the pump, and prodding their puppet Bush to threaten and invade more oil countries like Iran and Venezuela.

Americans instinctively know these actions are making us less not more safe. It's time to get the cronies out of our foreign policy."

[MasonJar]

4. KO has him on a lot. He is careful, but a little left leaning with KO.

[samsingh]

6. dana sounds like an instrument of a political party

[Joe Bacon]

7. Skull and Bones Dana defending his fellow Bonesman again.

Is there NOBODY at the WHORESHINGTON POST who won't be a stenographer for the Republicans?