Reuters pretty much confirms what we’ve felt watching the White House and top GOPers turn what polls show is growing widespread across-the-boards disapproval of the war in Iraq into a sheer partisan issue — accusing Democratic critics of being terrorist sympathizers versus the old, out-dated standby, communist sympathizers:
WASHINGTON, Nov 18 (Reuters) – Fighting a decline in public support for the Iraq war and his own leadership, U.S. President George W. Bush and Republican allies have chosen to court his political base with a campaign-style offensive against Democrats.
Minus a brief interval after 911, this administration has been perhaps the most shrill and partisan administration of any party in many years. Even if you point to FDR and the New Deal, Harry Truman’s 1948 re-election year build up to his winning underdog campaign, and Richard Nixon’s “Silent Majority” Vietnam years, you can’t find an administration that has run such a sustained assault upon just ONE POLITICAL PARTY.
It’s the antithesis of what an American administration and Presidency is supposed to be: a group of people doggedly working to bring Americans of all beliefs together to achieve goals which constitute our national interest.
Administrations usually work to bring people on board; this one seemingly works to throw them overboard.
Read your history books and see if you can find anything quite like this one. MORE:
The Republican National Committee on Friday unveiled a new television advertisement accusing Senate Democrats of dishonesty for turning against a war they originally supported, although polls show the broad U.S. public following a similar track from support to disillusionment.
In other words:
- Independents who supported the war but now see all the reasons why they supported it either proven to be incorrect or the subject of intense debate….are DISHONEST.
- Republicans such as Chuck Hagel who have questions….are DISHONEST.
- Members of the first Bush administration who have been highly vocal about their doubts about this administration’s path…are DISHONEST.
- The more-than-60-percent of Americans who don’t agree with or have raised tough questions about the administration…are DISHONEST. Think about it: polls USED to show Americans supported the war. Now they’re showing the war is losing support. So MOST Americans are DISHONEST…and only those who stick with the administration and do not question them or second-guess them are HONEST.
Reuters adds:
Analysts saw the push as a response by a worried White House to stop an erosion in popularity that has extended to Bush’s bedrock supporters, such as military households, married voters and even the NASCAR auto-racing fans emblematic of his conservative base.
Pollster John Zogby said his surveys showed majorities of such groups no longer supported Bush. “That’s the heart of his base. Bush has to at least get back support from some of those,” Zogby said.
The latest Gallup poll this week found only 35-percent of respondents approved of Bush’s handling of Iraq and 63 percent disapproving. Some 60-percent said the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 had been a mistake.
So they are all DISHONEST (only people who are registered to a party with an R on it, or who are named Rush and Sean and have radio shows are honest). And here’s the key quote:
“The White House is very afraid of these numbers. They have gone back to the patriotism theme that worked for them so well in the past to secure their political base,” said political scientist Steven Wayne of Georgetown University. “Bush is trying to prevent further defections to stop the anti-war people from forcing his hand.”
So to regain support among GOPers and secure his base he must demonize an entire party and question their love of the United States. (Suppose some nut out there decides he just MUST physically rid the United States of these traitorous Democrats?)
For all of the talk throughout the past six years about how much better George W. Bush has been than his father, isn’t it now time to concede that, for all of his flaws, the first George Bush had it right about being PRESIDENT — that you try to bring people into the fold whenever you can? The present President George Bush seems to be all about gaining support by whipping up political rage against one group or another, getting people on his side fired up against other Americans, then excluding those who won’t take his White House’s marching orders.
Prediction: The number of DISHONEST people among independents and Democrats could increase due to backlash over these tactics and in 2006 the GOP may find that although it has gotten its base out it’s also gotten out the DISHONEST independents, moderate Democrats, people who’ve gone to military funerals, etc…who might have responded to GOP arguments if they were substantive and not quintessentially demagogic.
The danger for the GOP: these are the people who helped them win elections before, adding to the GOP hard-core base that loyally turned out.
But now they’re DISHONEST…so who needs them anyway?