Democrats Question Republican Patriotism. Again.

No, the Senators who have been maligned need to confront Rep. Dingell and Gov. Granholm personally.   Stand outside Rep. Dingell's office (video running) and challenge him to repeat the charge in person and on camera.  Do the same with Gov. Granholm.

Not a bad idea as far as it goes, but unless the neocomrade writes down the exact words that are to be megaphoned by the Despised and Rejected, they will probably make a quagmire of it. 

The hack pols of 2008 are simply not in the same class as Rep. Lincoln and Judge Douglas, publicspeakin’wise.

Merry days.

Repugnant. Distasteful. Whatever. 

Questioning the patriotism of someone calling himself a Republican is a clever proactive defense against the next campaign of inuendo heading toward the Democrats.

The best strategy for both parties would be to laugh off the silliest smears...and make the accusing party seem absurd.  That has been the outcome of 2008.  "The Manchurian Secret-Muslim Terrorist" campaign backfired....and has left some spouting heads sounding like Chicken Little.

The quotes from Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, Wesley Clark and Bob Graham regarding Pres. Bush's patriotism have had NO effect with the public...BECAUSE HIS PATRIOTISM WAS NEVER IN QUESTION.

The question was HIS COMPETENCE!!!  And the public has decided that question through a long slow painful observation.

Seriously? With Michelle "I think journalists should look at possible anti-American lawmakers" Bachmann, Sarah "this is a man who doesn't see America the way we do" Palin, Saxby Chambliss smearing Max Cleland, everyone jumping up to Swift Boat John Kerry, and a seemingly unending list over the past decades, a iconic conservative President who equates disagreement with disloyalty and unpatriotic behavior... I don't know. I'm speechless.

If you want to become a party of ideas, you'll need to talk about ideas, which means giving up the victim complex. It means departing from the McCarthy-Nixon-Rove trajectory of the past 40 years. It's hard, because anger is addictive, and it's incredibly difficult to set our anger to the side and engage directly with the situation. But the constant stream of anger and fear and hate coming from Republican leadership and much of the "base" (like the angry crowds that Palin whipped up, and the "Obama's a Muslim/non-citizen/tyrannical space alien/whatever" nonsense) defeats your stated purpose of reconnecting with Americans because you think your ideas are better for the country. Anger and fear will surely have their openings again, but right now people are busy losing their jobs and not having health care, and I'd wager Americans are more interested in that than the manufactured hurt feelings of Republican leaders.

It's hard to argue with any of those quotes.  Had there been a shred of patriotism in the White House, 9/11 would have been prevented, we would not be in Iraq now, we would not have tortured prisoners, and the entire boards of Halliburton, KBR and Blackwater would be in prison.

I am a United States Army veteran, and I will say without hesitation that Commander in Chief Bush is a coward and a traitor for what he has done to the military and to our country.  Had he truly served, he might have a different view.

If you supported the war in Iraq, but have never served your country in any capacity, I am not interested in your opinion of me.  I believe I have earned the right to be critical of our military "leadership."

I think the idea of making an event out of Granholm's and Dingell's statement is great.  No political party exists on ideas alone. Nor on meticulously organized campaigns.  The passion, energy, and excitement come from people having fun.

When I was looking around in a used bookstore, I ran into this book called "Rules for Radicals." It was written by some old 60's agitator named Saul Alinsky.  I have heard tell that some guy named Obama thinks this Alinksy-guy has some pretty good insights into the practice of politics and winning political battles.  I do, too.  They also seem to work.

Alinsky suggested several principles of political tactics that lead me to think that the idea in the main post is a great one.  If the battle is worth winning, these are the kinds of things that we ought to be doing. 

The first relevant tactical principle is No. 3: "Whenever possible go beyond the experience of the enemy." (Enemy is Alinsky's word -- No American is my enemy).  Liberals have no experience with others challenging them about such things.  It's like the neighborhood bully's surprise when the pimply kid with braces fights back.

The next is No. 4:  "Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules."  It has become verboten to question a politician's patriotism.  OK.  Well, let's make Gov. Granholm and Rep. Dingell live up to the rulebook their party and political allies set up.  The price that they will pay for the public double-standard will not be in their standing among pundits (nothing will seriously damage that), it will be in terms of silent question marks eroding the public's trust in them.  Dripping hollows out rock. 

The last is No. 6:  "A good tactic is one your people enjoy doing."  It would be fun to see Gov. Granholm explain why it's unpatriotic to disagree with her policies.  It would be fun to see Republicans sticking up for themselves.  It would be fun to be associated with a party that doesn't behave as if it liked being a punching bag. 

Let's bring back the energy and fun.  This is a small way to do it.  Can someone set up a press conference for Monday morning?

in refrence to--

maybe I misheard.

The person/persons in your clip yelling were Obama supporters,, Alinsky style politics, read up on it. 

... who's married to a known separatist and who herself is visibly and historically tied to the same separatist group?  Wow, good for you!

Commenters like this and bloggers like Henke show us only that you have a long, long way to go before you're considered a legitimate force in U.S. politics again.  Oh, boy, good luck with rebuilding your party. 

One of the commenters here provided a link to his own blog where he spoke about the non-patriotism of liberals and the true meaning of patriotism, which he defined using Steven Decatur's quote, "my country, right or wrong."

Nothing wrong with that definition. But it says, "my country." It doesn't say, "my President" "my congress" or "my Supreme Court." I support America, but I owe no such allegience to those other institutions, particularly when they make so little effort to be right and not wrong, as was so often the case these past eight years.

For Mr. Henke to make it sound like Democrats/Liberals bring up patriotism more often than Republicans/Conservatives is ludicrous. What do you think symbols like flag pins and phrases like real Americans is code for anyway. Yes, liberals have taken to questioning the patriotism of conservatives as modern conservatism has come to embody everything we believe is counter to the true American spirit.

By the way, the quotes above, from Dean, Kennedy, Clark and Graham are all true. As for the ones from Granholm and Dingell, they are out of context, so I have no way to judge their truth.

Let's see shall we? Record deficit is double since W took office, TORTURE, Katrina, illegal wiretaps. two bungled wars, 9/11, financial meltdown, just a few of the actions and ommissions which may make people question Republican's real care and respect for the country. How can you be such great patriots if you run such an incompetent government? The facts are againnst you no matter how much you try to shout us down. If you don't repudiate torture, crimes against the constitution, the silent yet obvious racism in the GOP, the religious bullies, just for starts, you will continue to recede. And over recent years there have been many attacks by GOP of their opponents patriotism and loyalty. Stop lying. Nobody believes you anymore.

left until it's even.

The fact that you think it was a dodge is either evidence of how far apart each "side" is in its perception of slight, or you were living on another planet from 2001-4.

Questioning the patriotism of those who are opposed to any given war is standard procedure for those in favor.  Himmler made this point at Nuremburg.

Most recently, a youtube video went around in support of McCain's campaign featuring a wounded soldier, who more or less said that criticism of the war hurts the effort.  It's not different from the patriotism debate - we are all supposed to sit back and shut up while president after president asserts he has secret evidence and rolls out the tanks and says we can't hurt those soldiers' fragile feelings.  If that's all it takes, those in favor of war will always win the debate.

One of the principal missions of a site like the Next Right should be reviewing '01-04 - the totally disingenuous arguments, the rush to war, the explicit campaigning on the war, the disgraceful sliming of men like Max Cleland - that's when you lost me (formerly right-leaning, Bush voter) - probably forever, but if you get it together you might have a chance at, say, kids of about 12 years old right now. 

-Steve

--- Wesley Clark based most of his primary campaign on questioning President Bush's patriotism. He said of Bush's landing on an aircraft carrier, "I don't think it's patriotic." He said that Bush had failed to do his duty to protect the country, and "if you're patriotic, you do your duty." He said of Iraq, "I don't think it was a patriotic war."

--- Clark had plenty of company last week. At a Democratic event, Michael Moore bellowed of Republicans: "They are not patriots. They are hate-triots." By which he means, presumably, that they have substituted hatred of the opposition for love of country. From the podium, Ted Kennedy denounced "false patriots," and Howard Dean criticized those who fly "under a banner of false patriotism." The implicit message from both was clear: Republicans aren't true patriots.

--- This fits a pattern. Back in May, Teresa Heinz Kerry called Dick Cheney "unpatriotic." Sen. Bob Graham has said that Bush's Iraq policy was "anti-patriotic at the core." New York Rep. Nita Lowey has called Republicans "unpatriotic" for cutting taxes. Howard Dean, again, has said that Attorney General John Ashcroft "is not a patriot." John Kerry himself has said that it was "unpatriotic" for Bush's "friends" in the corporate world to outsource jobs overseas. For good measure, Kerry has called those corporate leaders "Benedict Arnold CEOs."