Pushing Back Against The Rove Lie Machine On The NSA Spying

by Steve

A piece in today’s New York Times says that the White House and GOP believe the NSA spying mess is a winner for them, as long as they can keep the talking points focused on the lie that Democrats are against keeping track of contacts with Al Qaeda suspects. As Rove indicated last week, the White House believes that as long as they can perpetuate this lie, the GOP can reinforce through repetition that the Democrats are soft on terrorism, Al Qaeda, and national security. But the White House wants to ignore the fact that many Republicans are opposed to what Bush has been doing.

Democrats should take Rove’s “heads-up” as a gift, and set up a war room for the remainder of 2006, like they did on defeating Bush on Social Security. The War Room should focus on jumping down the throats of any media outlet and reporter who takes the White House spin and runs with it, and should vigorously and aggressive push back with fact sheets that not only point out the White House lies (and yes, call them “lies”), but that also directly challenge the credibility and agenda of those reporters and their media outlets. And yes, that means you Tweety and Timmeh, and the rest of the terrified bedwetters in the media.

As a matter of routine, Democrats should spend all of 2006 reminding the public and the media that:

Democrats didn’t ignore Al Qaeda in 2001; Bush did.

Democrats didn’t let Bin Laden’s family leave the country after 9/11; Bush did.

Democrats didn’t let Bin Laden get away at Tora Bora; Bush did.

Democrats didn’t pass twice on killing Zarqawi; Bush did.

Democrats didn’t play into Bin Laden’s hands by attacking Iraq; Bush did.

Democrats didn’t turn away from Afghanistan and let the Taliban back; Bush did.

Democrats haven’t consistently under funded anti-terror measures here at home; Bush has.

Democrats didn’t ignore current law and the Congress to conduct these illegal activities; Bush did.

Repeat it over and over again, and bash it over the heads of the media day in and day out, all through 2006. The Times story notes that there isn’t a single Democratic point person on this issue, and that can be a disadvantage when going up against an executive branch that can coordinate a message and messengers, and that already controls the media cycle through its surrogates in the corporate media. Democrats can beat this back by having numerous responders all repeating the same points, all directed at the White House lies and the media for repeating them.