A Poor Use Of Their Valuable Time

It’s becoming obvious to anyone paying even a little bit of attention that Democrats - once again - are hinging their hopes to retake Congress this year not on their ability to sell America on their ideas, whatever they might be, but on their ability to sell America on the notion that Republican rule is hastening the destruction of the universe, or at least the destruction of the Land of the Free.

Witness the ongoing furor over the Bush Administration’s use of the National Security Agency to monitor contacts between persons in the U.S. and foreign agents hostile to the United States. Receiving what they believe is a valuable assist from alleged Republican Arlen Specter, who plans to hold Judiciary Committee hearings on the program, Democrats are salivating at the prospect of drawing the public’s attention to an issue that they believe is a sure winner for them.

Unfortunately for them, there is a fact that will likely elude their recognition until they have already expended much time and energy that could have better been spent elsewhere – like on selling voters on their policies, if indeed voters can be sold on them: That is, that there is no provision in the law that will clearly condemn the Administration’s actions in the eyes of the populace. Indeed, the relevant law seems to have been written broadly enough to easily include the narrowly targeted monitoring that is taking place. Between that and the grant of power given by the Congress to the President following the 2001 attacks on America, “there’s nothing to see here.”

But beyond just being a colossal waste of their time and effort in an important campaign season, the simple fact is that they are missing a huge point that may indeed cause them real harm in the fall campaign: Americans are still more scared of the terrorists than they are of George Bush and the Republicans. And the Democrats’ continual drawing of attention to an issue which at the very least gives the impression that they would rather give a terrorist a pass on calling an accomplice in the U.S. than take the chance on hearing a teenager confess to a friend that she had an abortion without her parents’ knowledge does not help their image in the national security arena.

Ask an American if they fear jack-booted Bush Brownshirts will break down their door in the middle of the night to drag them away because they told a friend over the phone that they’re going to campaign for the Democrats in the fall, and it’s safe to say that less than five percent will honestly say “yes.” Ask that same person if they fear what might happen if terrorist leaders outside the U.S. can transmit orders to their agents within the U.S., and that number shoots through the roof. Indeed, it’s safe to say that most Americans would agree that if the President knows such correspondence is taking place, it would be colossally irresponsible for him not to monitor such.

But then, what can the Democrats do? The fact is that even in the election year of 2006, five years after the attacks, National Security remains near the top of every Americans’ list of most pressing issues. And the Democrats are viewed as extremely weak on this issue, in no small part due to the impression, given by their attempts to equate George Bush with Hitler, that they are not serious about it.

So maybe it’s only logical that they would attempt to divert attention from such a pressing issue to try to focus on a scandal. The problem here is that the “scandal” that they are choosing to focus on only draws attention right back to their weakness.

There have been some who suggested that, during the seventies and eighties, the Republicans exploited the threat of Communism for political gain to win four of five presidential elections during that time. And reasonable people can debate such an assertion from either side. But the simple – political – fact is that the American people viewed Communist expansion as a legitimate threat, and consequently wanted a leader who took the threat seriously. It was only after communism was largely defeated that Americans felt it was safe to put a Democrat in the oval office again.

Americans now once again live in what they believe to be dangerous times, and they know who their real enemies are. The continual attempts on the part of the Democrats to convince them that the real enemies are not terrorists, but rather Republicans, will most likely assure that they continue to be the party out of power in the near future.