Republican Talking Points

Or something the Republicans never do:

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough conducted a phone interview on Thursday morning with former white House press secretary Ari Fleischer, who heads a group that is running an ad campaign to convince Congress to continue funding President Bush's Iraq War.

"When we see all the missteps [in Iraq] ... it makes it harder, does it not, for the American people to trust this administration moving forward?" Scarborough asked Fleischer.

"Look at the other side," Fleischer answered. "I could blame Jimmy Carter for creating the mullahs and the ayatollahs in Iran."

"But Jimmy Carter's not president right now," said Scarborough. "Jimmy Carter's not saying 'Trust me.' George Bush is."

Get that? It's Carter's fault that we have problems with Iran. Nothing about Bush's "axis of evil" comment or anything. Just like the Republicans blaming Clinton for al Qaeda and 9/11, even though whenever he tried to take action against them the Republicans screamed "wagging the dog". Perhaps if the Republicans would have worried less about blow jobs in the 90's, September 11th would have never happened. Why don't people ever ask that?

Perhaps that should become a campaign slogan. When the Republicans try this change of blame game, come out and say "The Republicans infatuation with Bill Clinton's cock caused 9/11 and the loss of 3,000 lives". In this world of blame games, that holds more water than blaming Jimmy Carter for something 30 years ago. Hell if that is the case then why didn't Reagan do something? He was supposed to be this ultimate President. He had more time in office than Carter did.

I posted earlier today on Don Young (R-AK) using this bogus quote, which he attributed to Lincoln,  on the House floor:

Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged

As I said - that quote was not from Lincoln, but instead a right-wing fabrication. Young's office said he would not rescind the comments since the Washington Time has used it. Well the Washington Times has now retracted the statement, but will Young? Nope - instead he still wants to keep it:

Young's spokeswoman, Meredith Kenny, said the congressman took the quote directly from The Washington Times column. "Now that he's been informed these are not the actual words of Lincoln, he will discontinue attributing the words to Lincoln. However, he continues to totally agree with the message of the statement," Kenny told The Washington Post.

This actually puts Young in a worse off position. He is now saying members of Congress should be "hanged" for doing their constitutional duty of oversight. This is almost criminal and the media is not picking up on it? Why hasn't the Republican leadership come out in opposition to one of their members calling for the murder of member of Congress?

I believe we need to push more Don Young quotes out there. Since he feels it is alright to use faux quotes, then we should follow by his example. Atrios has posted one here and I got another one:

"Allah is great and death will come to the infidels of the west!" - Congressman Don Young (R-AK)

Perhaps we can get a whole campaign of these going. Let's see how quickly they try to step in and stop it once it hits the mainstream.

They keep attributing a quote to Lincoln that was not even his- "Congressmen who willfully take actions during wartime that damage morale and undermine the military are saboteurs and should be arrested, exiled, or hanged.". Here is Rep. Don Young (R-AK) using it on the House floor yesterday.

The problem is Lincoln never said that. Glenn Greenwald explains how this quote came to being:

But this quote is completely invented. Lincoln never said it. This "quote" was first attributed to Lincoln by J. Michael Waller in Insight Magazine, in a 2003 article revealingly entitled: Democrats Usher in an Age of Treason. But as Waller himself now admits, the quote attributed to Lincoln is completely fraudulent. Waller wrote in an e-mail to FactCheck.org (h/t William Wolfrum):

The House Republicans don't want to talk about the war. Their defensive play of the week is to avoid the Iraq debate going on in the House. The following is from a letter circulated by Republican leadership and obtained by Steny Hoyer:

We are writing to urge you not to debate the Democratic Iraq resolution on their terms, but rather on ours.

Democrats want to force us to focus on defending the surge, making the case that it will work and explaining why the President's new Iraq policy is different from prior efforts and therefore justified.

We urge you to instead broaden the debate to the threat posed to Americans, the world, and all "unbelievers" by radical Islamists. We would further urge you to join us in educating the American people about the views of radical Islamists and the consequences of not defeating radical Islam in Iraq.

The debate should not be about the surge or its details. This debate should not even be about the Iraq war to date, mistakes that have been made, or whether we can, or cannot, win militarily. If we let Democrats force us into a debate on the surge or the current situation in Iraq, we lose.

You can read the full letter here on Hoyer's website (PDF File).

The most disturbing part seems to be the last part ; "This debate should not even be about the Iraq war to date, mistakes that have been made, or whether we can, or cannot, win militarily". YES that is exactly what the debate should be about. The Republicans have put in writing their downfall last year. That downfall has been to "stick their heads in the sand". They continually ignored the problems in Iraq and that is why we are in the mess we are today.

Support our troops? How the hell can they say they support our troops when they don't even want to talk about the very situation they are in? The only people these Republicans support are the party. It sounds eerily like the old Soviet days. Some one needs to inform them that they represent the people (of which 2/3 oppose the surge) and not the party. 2008 is approaching fast and with this kind of behavior I can easily see the Democratic majority grow in the House. They are listening to the people some what, which is much more then the Republicans are.

TPM and Think Progress have much more on this.

Aww look at this picture from the Huffington Post::

 Boehner could not stand to hear the stories of a colleagues time as a POW. The AP has this to say:

Republicans, now the minority party on the Hill for the time in 12 years, issued impassioned warnings of the consequences of undermining the president's policies in Iraq. "We will embolden terrorists in every corner in the world. We will give Iran free access to the Middle East," said Republican leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "And who doesn't believe the terrorists will just follow our troops home?"

Boehner teared up before reporters as he listened to Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, describe being a prisoner of war in Vietnam and learning of U.S. protests back home.

I'm not trying to be a hard ass, but get over it. This old meme that "the terrorists will follow us here" is total bull! We have a greater chance of being attacked at home because Bush has let the fight against the actual terrorists go to hell. Why doesn't Boehner tear up over that fact? What sacrifice has Boehner given to this war?

CNN shows the "war room" the Republicans had set up for the debate in hopes of pushing their "talking points" through. The problem with that is that their talking points haven't changed, while the situation in Iraq has changed - for the worse. Perhaps instead of Boehner leading a rubber stamp Congress last year, they could have shown the President that he is accountable to them and the people.