God knows, I’ve offered up this advice before, and never seen it take hold with candidates too timid to respond to the slanders and smears being hurled their way, but maybe this time it will be different. Maybe some of them will ignore their well paid, well dressed beltway consultants who always urge caution, and moderation in the face of brazen insults to their reputation and honor. Maybe this time, after seeing the what having a little spine looks like in President Clinton’s stand up performance against Fox News, they will abandon the advice promoted by those who have lead this party to defeat after defeat in our elections. Perhaps, the next time they are confronted with Republican smears and slanders in Republican campaign commercials, and/or parroted by smug television pundits and anchors, they won’t just sit back and take it.
So what should they do? Commit these three simple words to memory and then use them over and over again, as many times as needed:
“That’s a LIE.”
Harsh? Overly blunt? Too intemperate? Hardly. It’s merely the truth, and someone defending themselves against lies should be a clear as possible. They shouldn’t sugar coat their responses with mealy mouthed euphemisms, that, in effect, suggest to many people there may be some substance to the scurrilous charges slung at them by amoral, “say anything to win” Republicans. When you are being attacked by rabid dogs, the time for “niceties” and “polite debate” is long over.
Here are a few examples of how Democrats can turn nasty, abusive and lying GOP talking points on their head by using these three simple words when they are attacked with them:
Example One: Don’t you support the terrorists when you promote a policy that seeks the withdrawal of our troops from Iraq?”
“That’s a LIE.” It’s the Republicans who cut and ran from Osama Bin Laden when they had him trapped at Tora Bora in Afghanistan. When our commanders in the field wanted more troops to capture Osama and destroy the Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters with him, he refused because he was more interested in invading Iraq than capturing the killers who murdered 3000 of our people. Now he lives peacefully in western Pakistan, because our ally, President Musharraf won’t go after him, and neither will President Bush. Meanwhile Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters have renewed their fierce attacks on Afghanistan and its government because George Bush cut and ran rather than bring these murderers to justice.
Example Two: Aren’t you preaching a policy of defeatism to Americans when you suggest we abandon Iraq, which President Bush has called the central front in the War on Terror?
“That’s a LIE.” Iraq is only the central front in George Bush’s imagination. Our troops are fighting for their lives each day in the middle of a civil war which George Bush and his administration did nothing to prevent because they failed to plan for it. Despite numerous warnings from military and intelligence experts on Iraq regarding what would happen if we invaded, all their expert advice was ignored by President Bush and his advisors. Now he won’t even admit that he made a mistake, even as our own intelligence agencies confirm that our presence in Iraq has increased the risk of terrorism against America and Americans. Staying in Iraq makes us less safe, not more.
Example Three: Doesn’t the President need these tough interrogation practices to defend us against an enemy as ruthless as Islamic extremists, and isn’t your opposition to the bill which was just passed by Congress misguided, naive and simply wrong given what happened on 9/11? And isn’t your opposition to these effective interrogation methods providing comfort and support to our enemies?
“That’s a LIE.” We didn’t need torture to defeat the Nazis in World War II, or the Soviet Union during the Cold War. No one can tell me Osama Bin Laden is a more dangerous or evil enemy that the Nazis or the Soviets. The Nazis killed millions in the Holocaust, and in their wars against the other peoples of Europe, and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to destroy our country many times over, but in neither case did we consider it necessary to abandon our moral and Constitutional principles in order to torture prisoners. If we didn’t need it then, when our very existence was threatened why do we need it now?
What’s more every expert I’ve ever talked to tells me torture is ineffective. It gives you bad information, because tortured people will say anything make the torture stop. And they will especially tell you what you want to hear. Some of the intelligence President Bush relied upon to show a connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq came from tortured Al Qaeda members who simply told their interrogators what they wanted to hear. And we now know that there was no connection. Saddam hated Al Qaeda, and never cooperated with them. So don’t tell me President Bush needs a law which lets him violate the Geneva Conventions and our own Constitution in order to keep us safe because that’s a lie.
Example Four: The Republicans, and I’m thinking here of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, specifically, but there are others, have charged that a Democratic victory this Fall will provide aid and comfort to the terrorists and make our country more vulnerable to another terrorist attack. They say you don’t understand the true nature of the threat posed by this enemy, because if you did you wouldn’t attack the President’s policies in Iraq? How do you respond?
“That’s a LIE.” It’s the Republicans, and Mr. Bush who don’t understand this threat. Who after all was in charge when the 9/11 attack occurred? Who ignored the warnings of his August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US”? Who down played the seriousness of the terrorist threat, and ignored the plan prepared by the Clinton administration for dealing with Al Qaeda? And afterwards, who let Osama escape because he wanted to invade Iraq, a country with no connection to 9/11? Who insists that we remain in Iraq, where more and more of our troops die in are horribly wounded each day fighting a war that our own intelligence analysts in the CIA have told us is making the threat of terrorism greater? It was President Bush and the Republicans.
Democrats have long had a plan to fight terrorists that doesn’t involve wasting billions of dollars on no bid contracts to corrupt Republican campaign contributors for the failed reconstruction of Iraq. We have a plan to improve the security of our ports, and other vulnerable facilities such as chemical and nuclear plant. We have a plan to improve funding to our first responders, police, firefighters and paramedics, money that is desperately needed to prepare for any future attack. We have a plan to improve our intelligence agencies, so that we get better and more timely information on terrorist threats. We have a plan to increase cooperation with our allies and other nations threatened by terrorists, so that more terrorist cells can be disrupted and individual terrorists brought to justice. Rather than create more enemies by pursuing the failed strategy of stay the course in Iraq, we would re-deploy our military forces to where they can do the most good — in Afghanistan tracking down Al Qaeda and Taliban killers.
See, that wasn’t so hard. Just call a spade a spade, or in this case a lie a lie, and then tell the truth about how President Bush and the Republicans have failed America, and what Democrats are going to do to fix things. I’m sure you could think of many more examples of GOP talking points, and generate better responses to them than I can. But it all starts with three little words. Let me hear you say them, now, and don’t be shy about it:
“That’s a LIE.”
Democratic Responses to republican Talking Points