Advice to Liberals :: Ignore it at your Peril

Some advice from the best of the best..........

Eric Alterman
American politics has become a game with no rules and no referee. Play by the old rules--fairness, honesty, good faith--and face political extinction.

George Lakoff
Karl Rove is still outsmarting us, and we fed right into it.

What should liberals have learned from reading the Rockridge Institute website and Don’t Think of an Elephant?

Start with resisting Rove’s juicy bait.

Spell out the progressive philosophy of Total Security – keeping a strong military while also supporting job security, pension security, and security in the form of health and education. Attack Bush for giving up on homeland security, failing to protect cargo shipments, nuclear and chemical plants, and so on.

Point out Rove’s attempt to cover up Bush’s disaster in Iraq, and dwell on the public’s repudiation of the Bush policy for good reasons.

Keep pounding on the Downing Street memo, pointing out how Bush doctored intelligence and sent troops to war on false pretenses. Goad him about there being no WMD’s in Iraq, but plenty in North Korea.

Attack Bush for weakening our military and our economy, while strengthening al Qaeda, Point out that Bush is al Qaeda’s best friend, since he is their best recruiter.

Raise the stakes. Point out how the administration has been using 9/11 for their own political ends; of using the war in Iraq as a pretext to carry out a radical political agenda at home, and to get re-elected. Point out the immorality of using American and Iraqi lives for political ends.

Use the opportunity to brand the right wing as political fundamentalists, showing the intimate connections between Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism.

Raise the question of whether the brutality arising from the US occupation of Iraq led to an anti-US reaction in Iran and the squelching of democratic forces there – exactly the opposite of Bush’s predicted result.

We complain about our leaders all the time, usually with sufficient justification. Will they absorb these simple points in how to win? If they don't, the next logical step of implementing good policy and returning common sense to our government is just a pipe dream.