If a politician pretended to be outraged about certain ads that she says politicize the war - selectively condemning the opposing party's ads but staying silent about her own party's ads doing the same - wouldn't that be something the press should ... you know ... ask her about?But, here in Virginia, Thelma Drake's pretend outrage has been ignored. Note that Thelma herself raised this whole issue - holding self-righteous press conferences condemning an ad politicizing war death images while failing to ever condemn ads politicizing 9/11 images (even those with doctored photos).
And, to top it off, there is precedence for the media to ask about this exact topic of hypocrisy:
House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-West Chester, called on Democrats last week to pull a TV ad that shows images of flag-draped caskets of U.S. soldiers, calling the spot "outrageous.""To use those images to rally Democrats and to raise money is, I think, appalling," said Boehner.
But the outrage from Republicans comes after Democrats complained in 2004 about a campaign ad from President Bush that showed firefighters carrying a flag-draped coffin from the ruins of the World Trade Center.
Questioned by reporters on what the difference was, Boehner seemed tongue-tied. "These were American citizens killed by terrorists. That is a very different policy issue than American soldiers dying on the battlefield protecting the rights and freedoms of American people."
"How so?" a reporter asked.
"How so? You want me to describe the difference between men and women of the military out there defending the American people, and victims - victims - of terrorist activities?" Boehner asked.
"They were both killed by opponents, right? Terrorists or Islamic insurgents?" a reporter pressed.
An exasperated Boehner said: "The World Trade Center victims were victims of a terrorist act here on our shore and I think all Americans were appalled that this did in fact happen. But I think the differences, in terms of the images, are as clear as night and day."
Here, a reporter poses - "pressed," even - the very questions we've been asking all last week: How are the GOP and Democratic ads different? This reporter got a tortured response from Rep. Boehner - in fact, it doesn't appear that he ever even enunciates the difference. The deaths were "on our shore"? Is that seriously the "night and day" difference?
Unfortunately, here in Virginia, the media has given Thelma Drake a pass on this issue, despite the obvious contradiction seen here and by other members of the media. Shouldn't a congressman who "press conferenced" herself into a major contradiction at least get one tough question about that contradiction?
Yes, yes, the Republicans are vile nasty people who think the way to win elections is to recite letters ("WMD") and numbers ("9-11") as slogans. Unfortunately, Kellam's feeble response was ... well, he didn't really know how to respond (and, in that, he was like many Democrats across the country whose party hadn't given them scripts).
Republicans win because they read from the script. Democrats lose because our party doesn't believe in scripts. We believe our candidates should be thinking people who can speak for themselves. That's good -- except that Republicans are better at reciting their lines than Democrats are at ad libbing.
But don't tell that to Ben. He's utterly convinced that both Kellam and Webb are going down in flames. Apparently, everybody is watching the summer pre-campaign with baited breath, utterly blown away by Thelma's ads and Allen's "You Forgot Poland" moment.
::snap::
Ah, back to reality, where nobody notices elections till September.