Either the Democrats take the truth to power, as Jack Murtha has on national security, or the November elections will be lost. It's that simple.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
We are at a relative's house on Sunday and were watching FOX News on Father's Day morning. Other than a special tribute to Billy Graham, it was pretty much a "news" show of fear, peddling in so many ways the notion that Bush's endless war in Iraq is really a war on terrorism.
Of course, BuzzFlash readers know that Bush's War in Iraq and the resurgent War in Afghanistan represent years of Bush's FAILED "war on terrorism." They are partisan, political wars, whose purpose now is to keep Bush and the Republicans in power. As a lagniappe, the oil companies get to attain record profits because Iraq is producing less oil now and Iran is threatening to turn off the petroleum valves. That makes the price of oil soar, because it is scarcer.
But, back to the Democrats and the failed War on Terror.
Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid just released a Democratic Party agenda for America. Most of its social and economic goals were commendable.
But they won't win either branch of Congess on these issues. This will be the third election that Karl Rove has run a campaign based on hotwiring fear into enough Americans to keep this nation a one-party Republican dictatorship. Rove knows how to weave a narrative, right out of Orwell's "1984," in which America is faced with a permanent enemy, whose face is -- literally -- constantly changing.
Rove knows that it is important to personalize "the enemy," make one person at a time embody it. So we have gone from Osama bin Laden (still uncaught), to Saddam Hussein, to al-Zarqawi, to al-Zarqawi's replacement (currently being built up into the new boogeyman by the Rovian/Pentagon propaganda departments).
This all may seem hokey to progressives, but it plays well as a persuasive news/entertainment story on FOX GOP News and the rest of the mainstream media outlets. Rove knows that Red State America is used to relating to news through personalizing it.
BuzzFlash recently interviewed Nir Rosen, a journalist who talked to most of the major insurgency groups in Iraq and survived. He told us (in an interview that will be posted in the next few days) that -- with the exception of the Kurds and the U.S.-backed "official" government in the Green Zone -- there are basically no Iraqi groups that support the U.S. presence there.
Bush made Iraq into a virulent hot bed of anti-U.S. insurgency -- and al-Zarqawi was a "gang leader," but certainly one of many. That is why the violence in Iraq is continuing unabated. Al-Zarqawi was built up into mythic proportions by Rove and the mainstream media. The truth is almost all Iraqis either support the insurgency in their hearts -- or actively as members of it. Those who aren't ideologically opposed to the U.S. still want our soldiers out, because too many of them have had a relative killed because of U.S. warfare in their country -- and because we are occupying their nation.
You can't win a political campaign -- as BuzzFlash has noted many a time -- by "praying a lie." The longer the Democrats allow Rove to employ the "fear" playbook a third time, while our real national security is increasingly at risk due to Bush's stubborn, arrogant incompetence, the more likely they are to lose the mid-terms.
Either the Democrats take the truth to power, as Jack Murtha has on national security, or the November elections will be lost. It's that simple.
Rove has counted on the Dems on the Hill to fear "the Big Bad Wolf" of national security for two elections. He is resurrecting the tactic for a third round. With the exception of Murtha, Feingold -- and now Kerry --the Hill Democratic leadership is once again playing into Rove's hands.
Rove can rely on a created or real terrorist threat or two before November to once again make the election a referendum on fear.
It's too bad the Democratic leadership is letting Rove define the terms of our national security debate, when Bush has done so much to put our nation MORE at risk.
The Democratic leadership lets all of us down when they pretend that we are safer with the War on Iraq continuing, when our presence there has put us each at greater risk.
The American people can smell and feel fear -- and they feel that the Democrats fear the power of Rove to define the issues. And because of that, they fear that the Dems aren't as strong at protecting them.
That's a formula to fear come the fall elections. Because it is a winning formula for the Republicans, yet again.
And the saddest irony is that the Busheviks are making America weaker everyday.
All the Democrats have to do is expose the truth.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
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