Question Of The Day

by digby

From today’s New York Times:

One who attended was George Terwilliger, a deputy attorney general in Mr. Bush’s father’s administration, who said that questions over the spy program were “not so much a debate about the law as about the tactics that are necessary to combat the type of violent enemy we’ve never confronted before.”

He added, “I hope the A.G. will make that point very strongly, that there is no precedent for what we’re dealing with here.”

I’m hearing everywhere that the Democrats are skittish about pursuing the NSA scandal due to the GOP’s aggressive framing of the program as necessary to protect the American people. It is indisputable that Republicans have been very successful at portraying themselves as strong and Democrats as weak on national security for more than 40 years and have used this issue aggressively in the last two elections. Indeed, the only time we won the presidency since 1964 was during times when national security was not on the agenda (or their president was forced to resign in disgrace.) They have appropriated certain master narratives about heroism and courage to define Republican leadership which they sell as necessary when the country is under threat — a threat which they also insist upon defining as existential (communism and terrorism) and which always requires brute force rather than strategic cunning or intelligent maneuvering. (Remember that at the country’s most dangerous moment in the last 50 years — the Cuban Missile crisis — the hawks insisted that the only answer was to launch a pre-emptive strike while cooler heads insisted on trying to figure out a way to step back from the brink.)

So, knowing this and knowing the Rove has been telegraphing that they plan to pull out their wellworn playbook once again, I’m throwing this out to you readers today to mull over and discuss. Since the Republicans have been successful in winning elections on national security, how should Democrats deal with it?

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