Friday, January 20, 2006

Dems choose, we lose

Following up on Fixer's post about having Col. Murtha respond to the SOTU, it appears the Dems are steppin' on their weenies again. From Arianna:

So the Democrats have chosen Virginia Governor Tim Kaine to deliver the party's response to President Bush's State of the Union speech. Chalk up another one for the What the Hell Are They Thinking? file.

On the same day that Osama Bin Laden's chilling warnings make it Red Alert clear that Bush's obsession with Iraq has not made us safer here at home -- and, indeed, has caused us to take our eye off the real enemy -- the Dems decide that the charge against Bush shouldn't be led by someone who can forcefully articulate why the GOP is not the party that can best keep us safe, but by someone whose only claim to fame is that he carried a red state.

Talk about clueless.

I know I've said this before and before, but the Democrats will never become the majority party until they can prove to the American people that they have a better plan for keeping us safe. And that means having someone like Jack Murtha give the State of the Union response -- someone with the authority to make the point that, on every level, Iraq is the wrong priority. And that the hundreds of billions already spent on Iraq (and the countless billions to come) would be better spent shoring up our ports, roadways, railways, securing our nuclear installations and chemical plants, and properly supporting our first responders.

I've got a better idea. Why don't the Democrats reconsider their choice and pick someone more able than Kaine to make the national security argument? They don't even have to make a big deal out of the switch. Kaine can simply come down with a really, really bad cold that night. Cough, cough... and Murtha is waiting in the wings.

The Friday before the 2004 election, bin Laden re-emerged from another protracted silence and released another tape, dominating the news. But instead of aggressively making the point that his reappearance proved that Bush had failed to make America safer, Democratic strategists flinched and had Kerry focus on the economy instead. And we all remember how well that turned out.

The question is: Do the leaders of the Democratic Party remember?

My question is: what has to happen before the Dems learn that we are in the fight of our lifetime against this administration's evil agenda. Why do they insist on lobbing softballs when what's called for is a line drive to the enemy's head?

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