Oooooh, Jiujitsu
by digby
This, from Ramesh Ponnuru is funny:
President Obama’s interventions in this debate have been gifts to the Republican party–but it may be that what Republicans should do now is take the gift to the bank. In other words, make your point and move back to talking about the economy, the health-care law, and the size of government.
A lot of voters, maybe most of them, think that Obama has spent too much time on issues they don’t care about: Cambridge police procedures, the siting of the Olympics, etc. A Republican candidate could make a fairly effective stump speech out of that perception. Republicans should want the public to view Obama as the guy who has made the mosque an issue when what voters care about is the economy. If they spend more time talking about it themselves, that won’t happen.
I’m sure he’s correct that Republicans would be willing to believe that Obama is the one who made the “mosque” an issue when the GOP just wanted to do the people’s business. After all, they have shown they are willing to believe anything. But I have a sneaking suspicion that the neanderthals have their blood up and aren’t going to be easily aroused by dry speeches about Austrian economics and Ayn Rand now that they’ve been unleashed.
But hey, nobody ever lost a bet that you could win by turning Democrats into sputtering fools screaming “No, no, no, no — YOU guys are the ones who ….!!?$%$#!!” If the right wing plays its cards right, the Democratic congress will end up passing a resolution declaring Obama a Muslim and outlawing mosques within a hundred miles of a military base, after which the Republicans will take to the airwaves protesting that the government wasted taxpayers money while desperate Americans are denied unemployment insurance.
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