Eleanor Clift: Connecticut result doesn’t bode well for the GOP

[DeclinetoState]

Fear Factor
Republicans are using the terror plot news and Lieberman’s defeat to paint Dems as weak. But the Connecticut result doesn’t bode well for the GOP in the midterms.

Web-Exclusive Commentary
By Eleanor Clift (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4900886/)
Newsweek
Updated: 1:04 p.m. PT Aug 11, 2006

Aug. 11, 2006 - The foiled terrorist plot to explode airliners over the Atlantic reminds voters that the horrors of warfare they see unfolding on their television screens in Iraq and Lebanon could yet come home to America. There is no doubting the seriousness of the threat the British security forces uncovered, yet there is something disquieting about the way Republicans jumped on the story to reinforce their message coming out of the Connecticut primary that anti-war Democrats can’t be trusted with national security.

This week’s victory of political unknown Ned Lamont over Democratic Senator Joe Lieberman prompted a familiar refrain from the GOP playbook about a party hijacked by its left wing, too weak to respond to terrorism, stuck in the Vietnam era of George McGovern. Never mind that more than 30 years have passed since McGovern ran for president on an anti-war platform. His name is still a potent symbol along with such phrases as cut and run, which the GOP is hammering home to voters in a lame defense of the Iraq war.

“They’ve been playing that angle so long, the politics of fear,” McGovern told NEWSWEEK in a telephone interview from Montana (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14307574/), where he is spending the summer. “Nixon used to say people don’t vote on faith; they vote on fear. For 50 years, they used the fear of communism to beat Democrats and liberals and to discourage any kind of dissent. I hope we don’t have 50 years of terrorism for them to do the same thing.” If Lieberman stays in the race as an Independent, he will carry the GOP’s message that the Democrats have returned to the days of McGovern, and that there is no room in the party for a pro-war, muscular Democrat. “They’ve done that for 50 years—saying Democrats are soft on communism, now they’re saying Democrats aren’t tough enough on terrorism. That argument is beginning to wear thin,” says McGovern, who served in World War Two as a bomber pilot.

More from Eleanor (and George McG.) at Newsweek.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14307574/)

[DeclinetoState]

I wonder if George realizes that the Republicans' fear of communism had a lot to do with its collapse.

[DoctorDoom]

Would that be the McGovern who carried only Massholechusetts and WDC in 1972?

[dPrasse]

How many election outcomes has Eleanor the Amazing predicted properly ?

[DoctorDoom]

Does the expression, "whistling past the graveyard", ring a bell, Clift?

[Maggie_T]

Oh, thank you, Decline, for mentioning Eleanor's name in your thread's title. Otherwise, I might have read that bitch's brayings. :eek:

I detest Eleanor Clift. Her babblings are like nails on a blackboard to me.

[DesertFox]

[McGovern's] name is still a potent symbol along with such phrases as cut and run, which the GOP is hammering home to voters in a lame defense of the Iraq war.Hey, when you got a strong hand, play it. When you got yeller up yer spine, cut and run. When yer cutting and running, be sure to sneer at how lame the other guy's hand is, and maybe no one will notice that you're running away from the fight.

[BarkleUSA]

RE:

If Lieberman stays in the race as an Independent, he will carry the GOP’s message that the Democrats have returned to the days of McGovern, and that there is no room in the party for a pro-war, muscular Democrat.

Eleanor nailed it; what she so obviously dismisses as a political maneuver the rest of the country view as the cold hard truth.

The Democrats have in fact returned to the days of McGovern - what other possible conclusion could there be?

Ned Lamont IS the face of the new Democratic Party and last week’s terror incident reminds us all why they can not be trusted - not now, not ever.

Lieberman, like a broken clock is right at least twice a day while the rest of the Democratic Party are more like sundials in a cave – totally useless.

[Maggie_T]

Barkle, you nailed it. :claps:

[DesertFox]

Lieberman, like a broken clock is right at least twice a day while the rest of the Democratic Party are more like sundials in a cave – totally useless. It isn't widely known, but sundials in caves were once used by dogs as fire hydrants.

[EveningStar]

I detest Eleanor Clift. Her babblings are like nails on a blackboard to me.

Remember when Rush used to call her Eleanor Rodham Clift? :rotflmbo:

[DesertFox]

Eleanor, go jump off a clift and give us back Miss Rigby, who knew how to keep her silly thoughts to herself.

[S-T]

The high turnout reflects voter anger with the war and with President Bush and the GOP-controlled Congress, meaning that Rep. Chris Shays and two other moderate Republicans in the state will likely be swept away in the tide of anger come November.
Very few things would make me happier than to see that freedom-hating traitor Chris Shays thrown out of Congress. If I had a choice between seeing him lose and seeing Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Hillary Clinton and Maxine Waters thrown out of Congress (all four of them), I would choose to boot Shays every time.

Only Baron Hill is worse than Shays.

[Riverboat]

Eleanor, go jump off a clift and give us back Miss Rigby, who knew how to keep her silly thoughts to herself.I can take a hint. Here you go:

Eleanor Rigby,
picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream.
Waits at the window,
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door.
Who is it for?

Eleanor Clift's voice is nails on a chalkboard. She screeches like a harridan and pounces like a harpy. She is Hillary with claws unsheathed. Each week the McLaughlin Group was turned into stone at a moment's glance on her Gorgon face. They were only allowed to revert to their normal selves because of a clause in the contract written by PBS which permitted stone monuments underwritten by NEA grants.

[DesertFox]

The high turnout reflects voter anger with the war and with President Bush and the GOP-controlled Congress, meaning that Rep. Chris Shays and two other moderate Republicans in the state will likely be swept away in the tide of anger come November.Say it ain't so! Angry white males in the Democrat Party? Noooooooooo!

:rolleyes:

Eleanor, you are cliftless.

[Kathy29]

Democrats are proclaiming that Lieberman's loss is doom for the GOP from one end of the nation to the other. Which just illustrates how much they fear that loss, and Lieberman's running as an independent. Lamont won by an extremely small margin. If this is an indication of the thinking of the democrat voters it could split the party and fracture it into pieces. It probably will. This is a good thing.

[Lubbock]

Lieberman will win as an Independent, and that will be a huge vicory for Bush. Anyone who can't see that is delusional.

The Left are so consumed by their abject and utter hate for Bush that they are blinded to the fact that the Soros/Moore Wing of the Party is getting them beat at every turn.

I just spent six day in the Buckle of the Yellow-Dog-Democrat-Belt, and you can't believe what's being said about the Party that some of those folks have been loyal to since Eve ate the apple.

These high-falutin big-city Democrats evidently believe that folks in fly-over country don't pay attention, but they do. And they are disgusted with the Democrat-Powers-That-Be. I heard more than one life-long Democrat say, "I'll never vote for another Democrat the longest day I live".

And it all centers on the War on Terror. Most of those folks can well remember WWII, or came along just after the war, and they see a direct correlation between the threat that Hitler posed to the threat that Radical Islam poses. [Radical Isalm being the whole of Islam, because as we all know, there there isn't a dimes worth of difference between Radical and Moderate. A Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim, and you never trust one --over here or over there.]

[Naturalized-Texan]

Lamont's win coupled with the thwarted terrorist plot sounded the death knell for the Demonrat Party. It may rise again in another form, but only if it returns to the real world.

[Wyatt_Junker]

[Radical Isalm being the whole of Islam, because as we all know, there there isn't a dimes worth of difference between Radical and Moderate. A Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim, and you never trust one --over here or over there.]

I actually have more of a problem with moderate Islam.

Radicals are easier to deal with. You can spot them. They are the ones shouting. The ones with beards. The ones with BVD's on their head. Seething assholes with furrowed brows.

The moderates are much harder to obtain a position of where they stand. And they make up 8X - 9X more of the popluation. They are eeriely quiet whenever something goes BOOM and they never condemn it beyond a considerable nor a critical mass.

The moderates are also the ones who give rise to the extremists. Without the moderates you would have no terrorists. The moderates give cover, give excuse, give aid and give support(both moral and financial) to their more outspoken accomplices.

A perfect example of what I'm referring to is the march in the nation's capital this weekend.

Here's (http://news.search.yahoo.com/news/search?p=washington+rally&c=news_photos) your 'moderates'.

Interestingly enough, Yahoo pictures does not show you who is intermingling in the crowd with these mods.

I guess Yahoo doesn't want you to think too badly of these 'moderates'.

But all it takes is another, more honest photoshot of the SAME DC protest and you get these (http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=22080_Terrorism_Supporters_in_Washington_DC&only) people. The ones Yahoo doesn't want you to see.

Now, here's what's interesting.

The moderates, the ones with the Lebanon flag painted on their faces, are mixing it up with the extremists, the ones with the Hezbollah flags. They are one and the same. And even though Yahoo doesn't want you to face that fact, it is no less true.

And I would rather have a DC march that was full of terror supporters than this kind of disingenuous hybrid.

The moderates are WAY more of a problem than Richard Reid, Mohammad Atta, Osama Bin Laden, Nasrallah, Zwahiri, Zarqawi, (insert name here).

The moderates make these men. The moderates build them, finance them, brainwash them and enshrine them either silently or not. The moderates in their silence, denial or even outward support are playing rope-a-dope with our future.

And it is also why Iraq is not working. We needed to attack the moderates and make THEM submit. Not the terrorists. Then, we would have taken their heart out, their incentive, their will and their motive.

We did not hit hard enough into the center.

[Lubbock]

In talking about "moderates", we're taking this thread way off topic, but while we're off, let's keep going.

There is something about Muslims that I can't explain or put into words, but I watched it go on when I lived in Pakistan. Granted, that was forty years ago, when Radical Islam/Hate The West/Kill The Infidel wasn't a blip on anyone's radar; before Jimmy Carter set us for the war we're fighting now.

I can't truly explain it, but I'll take a shot: it's "positioning". People in that part of the world position themselves so they never have to take a stand or have to be on the losing side of any issue --and that includes everything from purchasing a camel to fighting a war. I don't care who the Muslim is or what he's attained in life: lowly villager or military commander. He's always looking to position himself in such a way to be on the winning side.

It's what's going on in Iraq. This "Military" that we're trying to "stand up" is shot through with that "positioning mentality". You look at the attacks that our military have suffered and then listen to the speculation that our troops were set up by people within the Iraqi military.

That's people within the Iraqi military wanting to be on which ever side comes out on top: if the US cuts and runs, then the Iraqis want to be on the side that will fill the vacuum when we're gone.

I believe that very positioning mentality is what posesses the so-called Moderates here in this country: should Radical Islam truly defeat the US and take over, the Moderates want to be seen as being on the side of Radical Islam from day one.

Like I said, I can't explain it very well, but having been witness to it, I recognize it when I see it.

I have to believe the the US Commanders in the field are well aware of it, and are fighting it as best they can.

Muslims are the most duplicitous people on the planet. It's in the genes.

[Kathy29]

Lubbock, you put it quite well. Our media helps them, no end.

[DesertFox]

You did say that well, Lub. Orientals do the same thing. They call it "saving face." Jean Larteguy, in his fabulous book Yellow Fever on the French war in Indochina, described a Laotian's attitude toward the French after Dienbienphu. It went something like this: "Before, when referring to a Frenchman, it was always 'monsieur.' Now it was (some other word I don't recall), meaning 'that boy' or 'that lad.' It was no use explaining that it was for them that we had taken such a hiding."

At Dienbienphu the French lost face. In Laotian eyes they could never get it back.

Barbara Tuchman describes the same thing in her Pulitzer Prize-winning 1972 bio, Stilwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-1946. In fact, Stilwell himself described it, to the effect of "Fear of losing face kept Chung Kai chek from ever engaging in a real battle with either the Japanese or, later, the Reds. He knew that if he lost a battle, he'd never get his high place back because of the loss of face; so he avoided battle at all costs. This drove the combat-happy Stilwell up the wall, because he knew that with the Chinese troops he had trained, he coulda whupped most anybody.

I had personal experience with Arabs at Fort Leavenworth, and agree that they are perhaps the most duplicitous people alive. Also the most sexist. And the most racist. A more oily people can't be imagined.

[DoctorDoom]

Orientals do the same thing. They call it "saving face."I suspect that Japan actually welcomed the two nukes. The leadership knew there was no hope of winning, and their losses were staggering, but to surrender meant losing face. They'd have fought to the last soldier was dead, because they'd have died honorably.

When Hiroshima and Nagasaki went up in hellfire, it was something so new and utterly destructive that Japan could not possibly defend itself against it. Surrendering could therefore be done without losing face. We brought an honorable end to their unwinnable war, and many thousands of Japanese lives were saved.

IMO, their friendship with America is at least in part because we allowed them to surrender without shame.

[DesertFox]

Shrewd observations, Doc. I agree completely.