Bush Administration: We Decide What To Protect genre: Just Jihad & Six Degrees of Speculation

Never mind the man behind the curtain

OK, this is beyond absurd...it is full-scale nonsense and it needs to be talked about by every Democrat in every interview between now and November. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, while commenting on legislation proposed by Democrats to protect our ports, told a Senate committee on Tuesday that the U.S. cannot afford to monitor each and every potential terrorist target. The New York Times has the full article here.

Osama bin Laden, Mr. Chertoff said, has made it clear that scaring the United States into an unsustainable spending spree is one of his aims. In a 2004 video, Mr. bin Laden, the Qaeda leader, spoke of “bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy."

“He understood that one tool he had in waging war against the United States was to drive us crazy, into bankruptcy, trying to defend ourselves against every conceivable threat," Mr. Chertoff said at a hearing of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “We have to be realistic about what we expect and what we do. We do have limits, and we do have choices to make."

It appears that the Democrats view the remarks by Chertoff as being part of the Bush administration effort to refocus voters on the threat of terror. While that may well be true, Chertoff's comments, in my opinion, provide the Democrats with an opening to confront the GOP position on terror head on. Better yet, the remarks allow Democrats to attack the Bush administration's policies on terror in the context of the Iraq war.

I would argue that Democrats should immediately ask voters to reevaluate the Republican rationale that elects to continue spending billions of dollars prosecuting a failed war effort in Iraq despite the fact that the WMD's we sought to destroy never existed. The strategy would then ask voters why we haven't expanded efforts to capture bin Laden and put more pressure on Pakistan to assist in that effort given that we know for a fact that Osama seeks to execute larger and more destructive attacks on American soil. Democrats would benefit from forcing voters to evaluate the reasonability of our current efforts to combat terrorism and whether or not the Iraq effort is hindering more important preventative measures.

Such a strategy would co-opt the Republican argument that Iraq is essential to the war on terror and reassure voters that their opposition to the handling of Iraq is not only legitimate, but that the effort may be a distraction and an obstacle to any new approaches that may well be critical to providing for their personal safety. Clearly, if the Democrats were able to convince those voters opposed to the Iraq war to hold their ground while also making inroads with voters who may be hesitant to turn over power to the Democrats because of concerns about the handling of the war on terror, it would be hard to imagine them not taking control of the House and possibly the Senate.

“I put my daughter in my car," Mr. Chertoff told Mr. Lautenberg. “If I wanted my daughter to be 100 percent safe, I’d put a five-mile-an-hour speed limit cap on the car." But that is not an option, he added, “because that’s more safety than we can afford."

Mr. Lautenberg seemed unimpressed. “If we inspected one out of 20 people going into the White House for tours, or coming into this place, would we feel secure?" he said. “I don’t think so."

This is a unique opportunity for Democrats to take a play out of the Rove handbook as well as to demonstrate the strength and leadership so many voters feel they have not delivered in recent months. It allows them to argue that the Republican led government has failed in Iraq and in the war on terror...which effectively neutralizes the GOP effort to use fear to their advantage. Democrats could take the fear that is being invoked and turn it against the President and his Party in a moment of strategic dexterity that would be seen by voters as a bold assertion of leadership and a clear call for a new direction.

Daniel DiRito | September 14, 2006 | 12:50 PM
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