Posted on 01/04/2006 3:36:32 AM PST by billorites
Rep. John Murtha probably wasn't on President Bush's Christmas card list, but Democratic political analyst Charles Cook thinks he should have been.
Mr. Cook noted in the president's popularity started to rebound almost immediately after the Johnstown Democrat made a speech urging immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq.
"Prior to Murtha's well publicized speech advocating an early withdrawal, the spotlight had been on the Bush administration's use of intelligence that led to the decision to go to war," Mr. Cook said.
"Murtha's speech changed the debate, away from whether we should have invaded Iraq and whether the use of intelligence to make that decision was flawed toward the more problematic issue of 'what do wedo now,'" he said.
While a majority of Americans now think it was a mistake to have gone into Iraq in the first place, a larger majority thinks it would be a bigger mistake to cut and run. Rep. Murtha took the spotlight off the president and focused it on the Democrats, who have no "plan" for Iraq other than preemptive surrender.
Democrats are changing the debate again, in ways likely further to diminish their popularity.
Democrats in the Senate have filibustered extension of the Patriot Act, and Democrats there and elsewhere have expressed hysterical alarm that the National Security Agency has been listening in, without warrants, on conversations between al Qaida suspects abroad and people in the United States.
Many Americans doubt there is much of a connection between the war in Iraq and the war on terror. But only moonbats fail to see a connection between the fact that there have been no successful terrorist attacks on the United States since Sept. 11th, 2001, and the measures that have been taken to protect us.
A Rasmussen poll of 1,000 Americans released Wednesday indicated 64 percent of respondents think the NSA should be allowed to listen in on conversations between terror suspects and people living in the United States. Only 23 percent of respondents disagreed.
The poll results can't be blamed on a lack of information. Two thirds of respondents said they were following the NSA story closely. Two polls taken on the Patriot Act last June indicated about 60 percent of respondents favored its renewal.
The two enduring mysteries of contemporary politics are why President Bush doesn't talk more about the war on terror, and why Democrats won't shut up about it.
"Apparently, Democrats still do not fully grasp that the public has profound and long-standing concerns about their ability to defend the nation," said John McIntyre of the popular blog, RealClearPolitics. Former Clinton pollster Dick Morris thinks the fundamental error the Democrats are making is assuming that isolationists who oppose the war in Iraq share their views on domestic security.
Polling he did for President Clinton indicated about 35 percent of Americans are isolationists, roughly evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, Morris wrote in his New York Post column Tuesday. Conservative isolationists are angry with President Bush for invading Iraq, but support him on domestic security, Morris said.
"The very same voters the Democrats attract by attacking the war they lose by condemning domestic wiretaps and the Patriot Act," he said. The Hotline newsletter thinks the renewed focus on national security could propel the GOP to a comeback victory in 2006, just as it did in 2002:
"In '02, the prevailing assumption going into the midterms was that the Dems, as the opposition party, would pick up seats," Hotline said. "Then, like now, there was a potent political issue over national security (creation of the Department of Homeland Security, which the Democrats were delaying)...If national security again plays a major role, the GOP might perform better than the gloomy predictions of present."
Perhaps Democratic opposition to security measures is motivated by principle. But Democrats often have sacrificed principle for partisan advantage, which makes their current behavior puzzling. Can't they see the cliff over which the party is plunging?
I think the McCain Feingold law is part of the problem. By making it harder for Democrats to raise money from ordinary folks, it gives more power to special interest groups and to wealthy moonbats like George Soros. The need for campaign cash drives many Democrats who would not normally associate with it toward the lunatic fringe.
Jack Kelly is national security columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and the Blade of Toledo, Ohio.
Try as we might, we just can't give them enough issues to hit out of the ball park. They just keep fouling them off. But they run the bases anyway, just as if they had won the World Series.
The author doesn't take into consideration the utter ignorance of half of the electorate... and the daily brainwashings by the MSM.
What the writer might have been trying to say is that instead of donating to politicians themselves, people end up giving to a 527 of some sort.
I still don't buy the "beholden to special interests" theory about the Democrats. The problem with any political party is that the rank and file that does the back-breaking work such as registering voters, working the phone banks, putting up signs, etc consists of very committed idealogues. Few, if any, of them are moderates. (By definition, a moderate is one who isn't passionate enough about issues to take time out of his schedule to hold a sign on the side of a road.) This is true for both Republicans and Democrats. GOP volunteers didn't spend fall of 2004 working for the President's campaign in order to get Harriet Myers any more than Dem volunteers would give Joe Lieberman the time of day.
The Democrats are behaving the way they are because they are reflecting the views of the rank and file active members of the party.
The MSM isn't doing the Democrats very many favors when it comes to being such fawning and pathetic "Yes" men to the Democrats and Liberals.
Win or Lose it seems the MSM is describing Democrats as executing brilliant strategies that are constantly turning the tide in an increasingly conservative America.
The Democrats are now over the cliff and hanging on by a finger nail... and the MSM thinks it is brilliant and isn't shy about saying so.
Fearless Prediction Time:
2006 Election Results:
House - 2 Seat 'Pubbie Pick-Up
Senate - 2 Seat 'Pubbie Pick-Up
Many Democrats deeply saddened...
This is becoming a common wisdom of sorts. . .now, almost always noted as a prelim to the argument justifying our needing to be in Iraq. . .
If the truth had not been conceded so easily by Repubs; this polling stat of a 'majority' of American's would not stand as disapproving our initial war effort.
The Demrats will not bury this bone - so offered - but rather hold it. . .flaunt it. . .run with it. . .not giving an inch on their dogma, which if polls are correct. . .has successfully created the false impression to a 'majority' of American's that this war and the removal of Saddam. . .was a mistake. . .
It was not. . .and George Bush was right and more Repubs need to hold to that truth. . .rather than conceding to the compromised vision, of the Left.
(Meantime and for certain). . .the Left will never honestly concede to the idea that the majority of Americans do not want to 'cut and run' but rather they will doggedly continue to win a reversal on that conclusion as well. . .
I am wondering if these Dems do not think they are just on a senic tour of the Grand Canyon. . .they appear in no way, ready to adjust to the 'truth of the matter'; but rather continue to fashion a history for America.
Perhaps, because of their sheer pervasiveness. . .they feel empowered for success; and have to say. . .Repubs are too often. . .too happy. . .giving them more than a taste of it.
bttt
bttt
I hope the 'rats keep plunging over the cliff. I want to see them, at best, with maybe 100 representatives in the House and maybe 20 Senators. That level of representation will be enough to remind people of how lunatic they've become...enough to keep people vigilant in keeping them out of power.
"What will the Democrats say when 100,000 die from an improvised nuclear device of 1 kT yield?"
They'll blame Bush ... after gutting the Patriot Act and tying GWB's hands over NSA wiretapping - they'll blame Bush and the media, as with Katrina, will carry their water for them.
Just as in no domestic drilling or new refineries but blaming the WH for oil prices and so on and so on. And the average American just doesn't seem to get it - particularly where the oil supply is concerned.
This one is turning out to be more fun than enough to watch and not worry much about.
By now the Dems and assorted libs have artificially floated so many bogus,outrageous schemes and charges against the Prez that rebuttals are unnecessary...some new wrinkle,more idiotic than the last, will "develop" to dazzel the beleagured average voter that it's not only impossible to keep up, it's a fools errand to even think about.
Why anyone would wonder why Bush or anyone would be disinclined to keep abreast of the myriad of daily charges is rather odd all by itself.
And beneath all of this, American voters are being ground down on a daily basis by this onslaught of dreck generated by an insane Dem party and wholeheartedly underwritten by the myopic MSM.
With indictments piling up on the GOP now (and on the Bush administration) for wretched excesses by Abramhoff et al, it's easily the best Gong Show ever.
Stay tuned.
And by slavishly praising the Democrats the MSM is paving the path to destruction.
The 'rat party is in the thrall of the wacky left to the extent that HRC cannot even look to her right without being called a fascist.
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