New RNC Ad Reveals Bush Election Strategy

[HFishbine]

Scott Rosenberg nails it.
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But the most outrageous claim -- one truly Orwellian in its rhetorical sleight-of-hand -- is a line that reads, "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists." (So much for all the claims Bush once made that he would not play politics with the "war on terrorism.")

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What "some are now attacking the president for," of course, is not for "attacking the terrorists" but for his foolhardy and foundering invasion of Iraq. The president's Iraq policy is now hurting him politically, given the utter collapse of the administration's case for the war and the continuing carnage in the post-war war. So the Karl Rove prescription now emerges: (a) Revive the lie that preceded the war -- the equation of Saddam Hussein with 9/11's al-Qaida plotters; (b) ignore the many ways it has been discredited; (c) repeat until re-elected.


Rove's thinking is cunning: After all, if the pre-war bluster was successful in persuading two-thirds of the American people that Saddam was responsible for 9/11, why shouldn't the Republicans keep playing that card for all it's worth? Turn "The Terrorists" into an all-purpose bogeyman: The President is attacking The Terrorists. If you attack the president, you're helping The Terrorists. Case closed. Election won.

more: http://blogs.salon.com/0000014/2003/11/21.html#a483