Nerves Have Been Struck

[UPDATE] 2:

Memory Hole:

The nation’s first Homeland Security secretary is airing some dirty laundry from the Bush administration: He says he was pushed to raise the terror alert level on the eve of the 2004 presidential election.

Hey, Ed Gillepsie: shut your pie-hole.

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[UPDATE]:

Republicans are the problem.

This:

We have been studying Washington politics and Congress for more than 40 years, and never have we seen them this dysfunctional.

[…]

The GOP has become an insurgent outlier in American politics. It is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.

When one party moves this far from the mainstream, it makes it nearly impossible for the political system to deal constructively with the country’s challenges.

Nice of the Villagers to finally notice. This column didn’t get near the attention it should have.

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Oh, how dare he! How dare President Obama steal the Republicans’ hook on which they have always hung their political hopes! How dare the Democrats claim ownership of a longstanding Republican campaign message!

You know a nerve has been struck when Republicans howl in protest over shit like this. John McCain says for shame! For shame! And all of the Villagers immediately fall in line.

Because really what he’s saying is, how dare they. And how dare he.

Yes, such things have always, always, been the perogative of Republican presidents.

Like this:

And this:

And this:

And oh yes, this:

Messages of bravado and machismo — such things have always been for Republicans exclusively! Most especially since the Vietnam War years, after which Democrats were portrayed as weak-kneed surrender monkeys, a lovely little piece of framing that the GOP successfully attached to the left for a generation. Every election we hear the same stories repeating that line, too: Democrats will get you killed. Democrats can’t be trusted to keep the nation safe. Only Republicans know how to do that. Only Republicans are muscular enough to have the support of the military. Only Republicans have a big enough dick. Look, here are the pictures to prove it.

That’s why Bush’s team photoshopped soldiers into his campaign ads and supporters spent millions to smear his rival, an actual decorated war hero, as a DFH who betrayed his country. Speaking of Photoshop: remember this?

And then they inflicted the Iraq War disaster on us all, turning that meme on its head. Along comes President Obama to take out the person Americans had been told was Public Enemy Number One. Obama did it, not Bush. And here we are nearly one year later and Republicans are crying into their hankies about it? Telling the Democrats they can’t brag about it? After all of the Republican grandstanding, flag waving, and fearmongering?

Fuck that shit. Trying to take away the Democrats’ bumper sticker?

Not on your life.