White House seen to use wiretaps as campaign asset
"With Karl Rove’s speech to national Republicans on Friday — followed by a hard-hitting campaign of speeches and events this week — the White House has effectively declared that it views its controversial secret surveillance program not as a political liability but as a tool: a way to attack Democrats and re-establish President Bush’s standing after a difficult year," the NEW YORK TIMES’ Adam Nagourney declares in a news analysis slotted for Monday page ones…
The piece is set to lay out a strategy that has been employed by the Bush campaign before — to use what some might view as a liability and turn it into a political asset. The Bush campaign did this in 2004 with the President’s troubled National Guard Service, questioning Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) on his own military credentials.
Nagourney writes: "Whether the White House can succeed depends very much, members of both parties say, on its success in framing the debate at a time when the country is torn between two very strong pulls: its historic aversion to governmental intrusion and its recently born fear of a terrorist attacks at home."
There’s a very sad subplot to stories like this one, or to Karl Rove’s speech this week, or to most of what comes out of the White House these days. How can an issue be used against the Democrats? How can we exploit some feeling, in this case fear, that people might be feeling to get more power? How can we turn anything that comes along into a devisive issue and paint the Democrats as weaklings, or traitors, or something else negative? They’re not thinking about what’s right for the country. They’re thinking about amassing power – crushing their opposition. Where can we insert the knife and twist it for maximal damage?
And we’re so used to it after these last five years that we don’t even notice. It doesn’t occur to us that the issues aren’t debated, they’re exploited for political gain. The N.S.A. domestic surveillance issue doesn’t have anything to do with Democrats being weak on National Security. It has to do with President Bush breaking the law and ignoring the Constitution of the United States…
And what is particularly galling is this coming from Mr. “I Broke my national Security Clearances and helped Destroy a CIA /NOC National Security Asset” Karl Rove. The audacity is STUNNING as it is outrageous.