Digby /"Leaders Lead" (Conversation with top Dem Operative says Follow)

[KoKo]

Leaders Lead

by digby


So it looks like the Judiciary Committee is going to do the big el-foldo on the NSA spying scandal and some Democrats in the congress are going to simply vote with the Republicans make the president's illegal program legal and call it a day. Once again their losing strategists have misunderstood why Americans believe that they are weak on national security. Indeed, if they capitulate on this they will have reinforced that image much more than if they oppose it outright.

This article by Walter Shapiro on Salon discusses what is driving some Dems to play down the NSA spying issue:

Typical was my lunch discussion earlier this week with a ranking Democratic Party official. Midway through the meal, I innocently asked how the "Big Brother is listening" issue would play in November. Judging from his pained reaction, I might as well have announced that Barack Obama was resigning from the Senate to sell vacuum cleaners door-to-door. With exasperation dripping from his voice, my companion said, "The whole thing plays to the Republican caricature of Democrats -- that we're weak on defense and weak on security." To underscore his concerns about shrill attacks on Bush, the Democratic operative forwarded to me later that afternoon an e-mail petition from MoveOn.org, which had been inspired by Al Gore's fire-breathing Martin Luther King Day speech excoriating the president's contempt for legal procedures.

A series of conversations with Democratic pollsters and image makers found them obsessed with similar fears that left-wing overreaction to the wiretapping issue would allow George W. Bush and the congressional Republicans to wiggle off the hook on other vulnerabilities. The collective refrain from these party insiders sounded something like this: Why are we so obsessed with the privacy of people who are phoning al-Qaida when Democrats should be screaming about corruption, Iraq, gas prices and the prescription-drug mess?



Much more of this interesting read here, 4th article down there's no Permalink:
http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/

[movonne]

1. I am so fucking sick of the Dems....I wish I could have a winning party..

[cyberpj]

2. Now I can truthfully say I have no party at all. NONE. nt

[Nite Owl]

3. And some day,

most likely not too far down the road we will hear the chorus saying, "We never expected this Administration to do that."

At this point how can they continue to believe and work with people like them? How can they still 'trust' anything they do.

[MrBenchley]

4. I side with the unnamed official

Democrats should be screaming about corruption, Iraq, gas prices and the prescription-drug mess. THOSE are winning issues for Democrats.

[The Traveler]

5. Sure, we should

But we should NOT be complicit in shredding the Constitution in the name of national defense. We do not need Big Brother to defend this nation against terrorists. The only reason why the Bushistas make anyone think it necessary is because they are as incompetent at the management of national security efforts as they are at, say, hurricane disaster recovery. I see no reason to hand them this kind of power simply because they are can't get their crap together within the existing and totally adequate legal framework.

No more power for would-be tyrants, especially blundering ones.

[FiveGoodMen]

7. I don't think they're incompetent...

I think they're crooked. I think they're getting just what they want. (Which is much worse!)

[bpilgrim]

6. what you don't get is that if the law doesn't matter

you might as well be screaming under the ocean.

peace

[MrBenchley]

8. I get that some people don't want Democrats to win

and find any excuse they can to bash us.

[bpilgrim]

9. you also don't get that some dems hold their reps accountable

otherwise we would be ignored.

thats how politics works...

fyi

peace

[MrBenchley]

10. LOL!

That might be the funniest thing you've posted yet.