Spencer Ackerman describes how badly Republicans have floundered on national security issues ever since the Christmas bombing attempt:
Mirandizing terrorists inhibits intelligence collection? Wrong. Charging a terrorist in criminal court is a danger? Hundreds have been convicted that way. Non-torturous methods of interrogation fail? They work better. Call the
Obama team pussies and they’ll back down? They’ll smack the tartar off your teeth. The public will rally around Republicans if they just ignorantly yell OMG TERRORISM loud enough? They’ll go to the other guy.
….The GOP, for the first time in decades, is completely discredited on national security, without any credible spokespeople, after the public remembers the experience of how Republicans started an unnecessary war at the expense of a necessary one. And now it’s all exposed.
They really do seem to have lost a lot of the old magic, haven’t they? The problem is that they don’t seem to have any other game plan than to reflexively bellow about Democrats being soft on terrorism no matter what the circumstances. Get Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab talking more effectively than Bush got Richard Reid to talk and they’re soft for not doing it with torture. Double troop strength in Afghanistan compared to Bush-era levels and they’re soft for not increasing it more. Increase drone attacks in Pakistan and they’re soft for not capturing terrorists alive. Their complaints have gotten so hysterical and preposterous that it’s hard for anyone outside their own base to take them seriously anymore. Increasingly, on national security issues the Republican Party in 2010 is about like Joseph McCarthy circa 1955. The rubes just aren’t buying their act anymore.
