Billbored: The Democratic Party is still up in arms over GOP Rep. “Mean” Jean Schmidt’s speech on the House floor wherein she called Purple Heart recipient and 37-year Marine veteran John Murtha a coward for speaking out about the failed Republican policy in Iraq. Tom McMahon, executive director of the Democratic National Committee has been sending me e-mails regularly to keep me apprised of the DNC’s response to Schmidt and to hopefully prise some money out of me to support it.
The DNC response? Put up two “Shame On You” billboards near Schmidt’s Ohio district office. Now that’s talkin’ tough, man. First, Tom asked me for money to buy the signs. He then wanted me to get excited because 7,000 Dumbocrats had “stepped forward to fund a campaign designed to show Republican leaders that there will be consequences for continuing their pattern [of] shamelessly attacking the service of veterans who don’t share their warped view of reality.”
Then he wanted me to get indignant whent the sign company, Lamar Advertising, refused to erect the boards. Well, I didn’t, but 100,000 others with less self-control did, and signed a protest letter to Lamar demanding, as Tom put it, their “right to be heard.”
Tom wrote me today to let me know that Lamar had caved — kind of — and was saying they would put up the boards if the words “shame on you” were removed or a prominent “paid for by” message was included. Tom characterized these demands as “shocking developments,” and noted indignantly that “the DNC will never allow a corporation to determine the content of our ads.”
Tom described the new plan to get the message out about Schmidt: “During the next week we will purchase full-page newspaper ads in local newspapers and just so everyone is sure to get the message — a mobile billboard will hit the streets in the 2nd district.”
More importantly, Tom said, the DNC is going to “gear up Democratic organization in Schmidt’s district (she won her seat by just a few thousand votes), in the coming weeks we will hold a special grassroots organizer training to help local Democrats get an early start on the ground game that will be decisive in November.”
And what’s the point of the exercise? Well, according to Tom, “This should be a warning to Republicans that shameless attacks will not be tolerated. We will respond in every state, every city and every precinct. The Democratic Party will fight for our values everywhere, and we will compete and win everywhere.”
While I agree that Schmidt’s attack on Murtha was mean-spirited, spiteful and just plain stupid, I think the DNC sounds like a bunch of little girls with their panties all in a twist. It’s a familiar Democratic posture — hopping madly, fuming badly, but in the end, overcome by impotence. They didn’t get their billboards, so they’ll hire a roaming one and buy full-page ads in the Cincinnati paper. Who ha! That’s telling them nasty wingnuts!
So what? The only good idea they have is to organize to defeat Schmidt in the next election. Why not spend all the media money on a grass-roots effort to educate local voters and overcome the’s few thousand votes Schmidt won by? Because the DNC wants to try to beat the Repugs at their own game — mass media manipulation — but they just can’t. They don’t know how to play the hardball game, so all they can do is they get their panties in a twist and cry foul — and lose.
I don’t care if Murtha was a marine, he’s a traitor now. No he is not a traitor for expressing a “different opinion” on Iraq. He is a traitor because he is expressing a loosing, cut and run strategy.
I don’t know what kind of man Murtha was, but just as Benedict Arnold was a war hero before he turned traitor, Murtha is a traitor today.
He and his ilk should emmigrate to France where they can live in peace with like minded cowards.