Playing the Security Card

Dick Polman writes in today's Inquirer how playing the national security card and using fear tactics politically is havin gless and less of an impact on the electorate.

Today, unlike in previous election seasons, both Bush and the war are broadly unpopular. Indeed, there is strong polling evidence that antipathy toward the war has severely undercut Bush's standing as a credible prosecutor of the war on terror.

Bottom line: Opposing Bush and the war is not an "extremist" position. Rather, it has now become the centrist position in American politics, as evidenced by all the polls.

In other words, with 60% of Americans now opposing the war in Iraq, the views of the "amgry left" and the "cyber bigots" is mainstream. Someone please notify Congressman Jim Gerlach that it's HIm that's out of the mainstream, not us. He's the one who voted for this war, who has supported George W. Bush and played the fear and terrorism cards. Remember the television commercials in 2004 where Gerlach and the GOP said his opponent was an Al Qaeda sympathizer and equated her with Osama bin Forgotten? He's a fine example to go condemining the use of hate and fear isn't he?

The bottom line is Republicans who support this debacle are running scared. They saw what happened to Joe Loserman in Connecticut and are desperate. Gerlach isn't the only one beginning to consider his new life as a leisure golfer. Congressmen and Senators who have been nothing more than lapdogs for Bush and Cheney are going to lose this year. Lose big.