This is an excerpt from a "Bloody Shirt" speech delivered at the Republican convention in 1880 on behalf of the Rutherford Hayes campaign and quoted in Sarah Vowell's
Assassination Vacation, a terrifically wry and funny little book. While the speech is a bit vociferous, I'd love to see something similar delivered on prime time against the Bushistas.
Historical caveat: the Democrats being railed against are the Southern pro-slavery bunch that morphed into the Dixiecrats and eventually became the backbone of the modern Republican party. At this point in time, the Repubs were actually "the party of Lincoln."
Excerpt below the fold.
"Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat. Every man that denied Union prisoners even the worm-eaten crust of famine, and when some poor, emaciated Union patriot, driven to insanity by famine, saw in an insane dream the face of his mother, and she beckoned him and he followed, hoping to press her lips once again against his fevered face, and when he stepped one step beyond the dead line the wretch that put the bullet through his loving, throbbing heart was and is a Democrat. Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat. The man that assassinated President Lincoln was a Democrat. ...Every man that wanted the privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for nothing and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every man that raised bloodhounds to pursue human beings was a Democrat. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat. ...Soldiers, every scar you have on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat. Every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone, is a souvenir of a Democrat. I want you to recollect it." -- Colonel Robert Ingersoll, 1880
Whooosh! Can you imagine an updated version being thundered at the 2008 Democratic convention? "Every man shot by Iraqi insurgents was sent to his death by a Republican. Every mother's son and father's daughter who came home from Iraq in a body bag was ordered to their deaths by a Republican." And so on. Speeches like this literally started riots in the aisles at the 1880 convention. The effect in 2008 might be...interesting.
Personally, I'd love to see it.