Optics
The Republican House leadership has gone mad.
Sure, it was a black eye when a hawkish guy like Rep. Murtha, decorated veteran and friend of the Pentagon, introduced a resolution that we should bring our troops home as soon as possible. So the Bushies fired off a few salvos of rhetorical ack-ack, like comparing the aforesaid decorated veteran to Michael Moore, which just made people laugh. Especially when Murtha, in his no-nonsense way, reacted with a comment ridiculing criticism of him coming from guys who've never served in the military, and one in particular who got five deferments.
Rather than letting it go, they had to keep fighting it, and in the process guaranteed that the story would make big news. Today they allowed the newest Rep. from Ohio, Jean Schmidt, to make a statement on the floor essentially calling Murtha a coward, a comment so vile that it provoked chaos, with Democrats rushing to the well to complain. Her remarks were later withdrawn.
Bad. But here's the best part: the leadership got so clever they introduced a resolution calling for "immediate withdrawal". Yes, that's right, the Republicans.
See, the game is, they force the Democrats to either vote for it, meaning they are "cowards" and want to "cut and run", or they vote against it, and appear to be disagreeing with Murtha, even though he didn't say immediately, he said "at the earliest practicable date." The Democrats are incensed, and the debate on the floor was burning up C-SPAN.
But despite their clever trick, the news headline is, Congress is debating a resolution calling for immediate withdrawal. Which, anyway you slice it, sends the message that it isn't a lunatic suggestion. (Either that, or the Republican leadership is taking up valuable time allowing lunatic resolutions to come to the floor.) Even if the resolution loses, so do the Republicans. They've just acknowledged that it's time to start talking about withdrawal.
And, if the reporters continue to take notice of the fact that this isn't Murtha's resolution, but one cooked up by the Republicans just to embarass the Democrats, it looks even worse. This stunt merely magnifies the image of the administration and its supporters as aggressively spewing political nonsense, and not willing to actually get real about governing the country, or coping with Iraq.
And if that weren't bad enough, someone has floated the suggestion that there might need to be an ethics investigation of Murtha, who's brother is a lobbyist. Apparently the ethics standard is "violate campaign finance law, take money from lobbyists, OK. Speak out against the Iraq War, ethics investigation." It's almost easier to imagine that story was Democratic disinformation than that the Republicans would be so stupid as to be seen so obviously bullying Murtha. Even if a majority of the public wasn't ready for some serious discussion about what we're going to do about Iraq, Americans of all political stripe resent "piling on." It just looks really bad.
The Republican machine has gone careening off the rails.
Sure, it was a black eye when a hawkish guy like Rep. Murtha, decorated veteran and friend of the Pentagon, introduced a resolution that we should bring our troops home as soon as possible. So the Bushies fired off a few salvos of rhetorical ack-ack, like comparing the aforesaid decorated veteran to Michael Moore, which just made people laugh. Especially when Murtha, in his no-nonsense way, reacted with a comment ridiculing criticism of him coming from guys who've never served in the military, and one in particular who got five deferments.
Rather than letting it go, they had to keep fighting it, and in the process guaranteed that the story would make big news. Today they allowed the newest Rep. from Ohio, Jean Schmidt, to make a statement on the floor essentially calling Murtha a coward, a comment so vile that it provoked chaos, with Democrats rushing to the well to complain. Her remarks were later withdrawn.
Bad. But here's the best part: the leadership got so clever they introduced a resolution calling for "immediate withdrawal". Yes, that's right, the Republicans.
See, the game is, they force the Democrats to either vote for it, meaning they are "cowards" and want to "cut and run", or they vote against it, and appear to be disagreeing with Murtha, even though he didn't say immediately, he said "at the earliest practicable date." The Democrats are incensed, and the debate on the floor was burning up C-SPAN.
But despite their clever trick, the news headline is, Congress is debating a resolution calling for immediate withdrawal. Which, anyway you slice it, sends the message that it isn't a lunatic suggestion. (Either that, or the Republican leadership is taking up valuable time allowing lunatic resolutions to come to the floor.) Even if the resolution loses, so do the Republicans. They've just acknowledged that it's time to start talking about withdrawal.
And, if the reporters continue to take notice of the fact that this isn't Murtha's resolution, but one cooked up by the Republicans just to embarass the Democrats, it looks even worse. This stunt merely magnifies the image of the administration and its supporters as aggressively spewing political nonsense, and not willing to actually get real about governing the country, or coping with Iraq.
And if that weren't bad enough, someone has floated the suggestion that there might need to be an ethics investigation of Murtha, who's brother is a lobbyist. Apparently the ethics standard is "violate campaign finance law, take money from lobbyists, OK. Speak out against the Iraq War, ethics investigation." It's almost easier to imagine that story was Democratic disinformation than that the Republicans would be so stupid as to be seen so obviously bullying Murtha. Even if a majority of the public wasn't ready for some serious discussion about what we're going to do about Iraq, Americans of all political stripe resent "piling on." It just looks really bad.
The Republican machine has gone careening off the rails.
posted by Paul at 3:49 PM |
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