The GOP’s Latest Siege Mentality Strategy: Kill the Messenger!

With the casualty count in Iraq continuing to rise -- and Bush’s approval ratings continuing to plummet -- and more and more of the American people turning against the war, the GOP has clearly landed on a new strategy for stopping the hemorrhaging: kill the messenger (or at least make him or her apologize).

The latest target of the GOP long knives is House Leader Nancy Pelosi, who, in introducing a very tepid amendment to the defense appropriations bill calling on the president to produce a report detailing his strategy for success in Iraq, offered a stinging -- and wholly accurate -- indictment of the war. “This war in Iraq is a grotesque mistake; it is not making America safer, and the American people know it.”

She clearly hit a nerve, because on Monday the GOP rolled out its big guns and started blasting away, with Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Majority Whip Roy Blunt, and Speaker Dennis Hastert all releasing similar press releases condemning Pelosi. Delay said she “owes our military and their families an apology for her reckless comments”. Blunt said Pelosi’s comments had “emboldened…the enemy”. Hastert played the “support our troops” card.

Of course, in her speech Pelosi had specifically offered her full-throated support to the troops -- regretting only that “the level of their sacrifice has never been matched by the level of the administration’s planning”.

Truth is, this is not about who supports the troops the most -- we all do. Besides, why would our troops be upset to learn that our leaders are finally thinking about a timetable for bringing them home? Don’t you think it makes them more upset to learn that Marines are still being told by their commanders that they should buy their own armored flak jackets, ballistic goggles, and knee pads?

Clearly, the siege mentality is spreading from the White House to the Hill, where congressional Republicans are increasingly fearful that by November 2006 the war in Iraq will become an albatross around their necks -- and cost them the majority. And the reason for the panic, above all else, is that more and more Americans are realizing that the war is not making us safer. That hits the GOP right where it hurts the most -- in red state USA. High-toned arguments about delivering democracy to the world will only take you so far… right to the intersection where “Keep me safe” meets “Couldn’t that $200 billion have been spent -- oh, I don’t know -- shoring up our ports, airports, railways and chemical plants… and catching Osama Been Forgotten?”

At the end of the day, it’s a hell of a lot easier to attack Nancy Pelosi and Dick Durbin than it is to capture Osama or shut down the insurgency. Or convince the American people that, as Bush claimed on Monday, “we’re making progress toward our goal” in Iraq.

As Chuck Hagel put it: “It’s like they’re just making it up as they go along”. And carving up anyone who dares speak the truth.

By the way, the thing that really stuck in the GOP’s collective craw was Pelosi’s use of the word “grotesque” to describe the Bush administration’s handling of the war. My dictionary defines grotesque as “shockingly inappropriate”… which sounds spot on -- or le mot juste -- to me.