The New McCarthyism

I'm just hoping this is a sign of desperation and an impending meltdown, but Republicans are going nuts. Rove's comments yesterday seem to have inflamed the passions of other Republican's who are tired of being tarred with the facts and the record of their own actions. Consider:

• Their president lied us into the wrong war,
• 1700 dead Americans,
• tens of thousands of dead Iraqi civilians,
• they've left American soldiers without armor or flack jackets.
• All the while, the Republicans keep voting down funds for veterans' health care.
• But, $9 billion of the US money allocated has gone missing in Iraq, apparantly with no accounting.
• We still can't get a straight answer about why we're in Iraq. (Sorry, "spreading democracy" doesn't wash)
• Oh, and of course there's the torture and detentions and renditions -- a legal black hole. 

Perhaps that last bit was in the mind of Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) yesterday when he said "is just inconceivable and truly incorrigible that in the midst of the war, that the Democratic leaders would be conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops." Wilson's comments come the same week that Bill O'Reilly called for the staff of Air America Radio to be arrested by the FBI and put into chains. I suppose Rove's comments may seem almost cuddly next to those. Ok, not so much.

At L'il Scotty McClellan's press gaggle yesterday, he of course tried to spin the facts, saying Rove was just discussing philosophical differences between liberals and conservatives. Ken Mehlmann chimed in saying that Rove's comments were true. They released a new series of attack ads on Democrats and talking points attacking Durbin and Dean. John Aravosis from AmericaBlog is convinced this is all part of the Republican game plan. This furor was intentionally provoked.

There have been hints that Bush's new strategy on PR for his war would be to blame Democrats and focus on equating disagreement with policy with not supporting our troops. This week's events seem to back that up. I suspect this will not work. People don't support this war. Bush's poll numbers indicate he's even chewing through support within the Republican base. Republican members of Congress are getting restless. Schiavo backfired on them. The Downing Street memos keep getting coverage. There's increasingly bad news out of Iraq and Afghanistan is not going well, yet they're rattling the sabre at Iran. And their plan is to ramp up the partisan discussion to the level of a new McCarthyism and calling half the country traitorous.

Yeah, uniter, not a divider.

I think this is going to continue to backfire. They'll whip up their most ardent supporters, but most people are tired of this. And there's no where left for the Republicans to go. They have not even one popular proposal to put forward. Zip. They've resorted to pushing a constitutional amendment against flag-burning. Constitutional. Amendment. Hello!?!?!

Democrats need to get out there and express outrage at this transparent attempt at diversion and demonization. They need to point to how the Republican party is tearing America to shreds, yet can only manage to demonize their opponents. I mean, they control all branches of government.

The American people agree with you, Dems! On every question, people are against Bush policies. Go! Fight! Don't apologize and don't play along with the Republican talking points. America needs you. Lead!