GOP to politicize national security in 2006

Karl Rove announced today that the Republican Party will conduct the 2006 congressional campaigns on Americans' fears of terrorism.

"Republicans have a post-9/11 view of the world. And Democrats have a pre-9/11 view of the world," Rove told Republican activists. "That doesn't make them unpatriotic, not at all. But it does make them wrong deeply and profoundly and consistently wrong."

Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean denounced Rove's remarks and renewed his call for the deputy White House chief of staff to be fired for his role in leaking a CIA official's name. "That is both unpatriotic and wrong," Dean said.

Rove, making a rare public address while under investigation in the CIA leak case, joined Republican Party chairman Ken Mehlman in warning GOP leaders against falling prey to the corrupting nature of power.

Okay, so there it is. What are we going to do about it.

The GOP plans an ugly, fear-based election strategy. This should surprise nobody. We have seen it all before: distorted voting records; vicious, false RNC talking points distributed to news organizations; "independent" citizens' groups attacking Democratic candidates; ads morphing Democrats into Osama Bin Laden and back again; and so on, and so on, and so on.

We know what is coming. This is gut-check time.

Democrats must be prepared to fight the Republicans on this issue state-by-state, district-by-district. The GOP reputation of superiority on national security is a sham, but it will be a fatal error to leave it to the voters to realize this on their own and cast their ballots accordingly. We must explain it to them in clear, unequivocal language:

• Osama Bin Laden is able to release threats on audio tape because George W. Bush and the Republicans let him get away and have been unable to find him.  

  
  

• Bush is not inspecting cargo containers at America's shipping ports.  

  
  

• Bush is endangering our troops by making them vulnerable to retaliatory torture if captured.  

  
  

• The president is wasting intelligence resources by spying on Americans instead of aggressively pursuing terrorists abroad.  

  
  

• He refuses to do anything to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil, limiting our options in dealing with Arab states who sponsor terrorism.  

  
  

• The Iraq war is creating new terrorists every day.  

  
  

• Bush has allowed Iran and North Korea to become nascent nuclear states while he was distracted in Iraq.  

That is just a start. Certainly, there are political strategists smarter than I who can come up with dozens more examples of the national security failures of George W. Bush and the Republican Party. We must hit them hard enough and relentlessly enough on their perceived strength to turn it into a weakness.

Karl Rove just told the Democratic Party what to expect in the 2006 election cycle. They should take him at his word. If they do not, they will tumble into oblivion, which will be nothing worse than what they deserve.