Here's one way to frame this fall's GOP multiple failings and lapses at their big issue -- security: they've gone AWOL, dereliction of duty, or worse.
AWOL - Absent without leave
Where was W when North Korea developed nuclear bomb? AWOL. Oops. Didn't see that one coming. We're busy fending off terrorists--see never touched ya! (forget the anthrax thing)...er, well, spying on Americans is a heck of a big job.
Where was W when Katrina destroyed New Orleans? AWOL. Heckovajob Brownie screwed it up. Didn't monitor those Americans close enough...oops, a bunch went down the drain, rebuilding gentrified houses--a few, formaldehyde gas filled trailers for the poor survivors.
Where is W on catching Osama? Even when Rumsfield claimed he knew where in Pakistan Osama was last January, nothing done. Not important now. AWOL.
Where was W when Afghanistan was retaken by the Taliban? AWOL...heck, maybe it's NATO's job now. Record Heroin shipments to US? War on drugs is passe.
Where was W when crime, bribery and corruption, sleaze and sexual predation filled Congress, FBI 'holds' on investigations, and cronyism siphons off billions from taxpayers? AWOL...let Hestert and Frist fix it. Shut down GAO reporting and whistleblowers...no problems then, right? And the FBI now has 33 people able to speak or read Arabic--but they're not in counter-terrorism.
We lose our civil liberties, rights to privacy and to travel freely, are limited to free speech zones, can be designated enemy combatants and tortured, and this happens on the watch of those who claim to want to spread our freedoms and democracy...AWOL, worse, we are betrayed.
The war on our elections, preventing paper audit trails, accountability, voter suppression, huge outlays of moneys to wrest the message from real issues and logical debate. Where's the leadership to restore integrity in elections? AWOL or worse.
The War on Terror seems to be really a war on keeping terror-tory for the GOP powerbrokers, war on Journalism with hundreds dead in Iraq and those in the US often pressured hard to not publish or reframe stories, the war on Liberal thinking to push it out of campuses and media, the war on scientific thinking to push it out of government and media, the war on rational thinking by pushing evidence and agendas into secrecy--free from scrutiny, the war on women's rights to turn them into Christian mommies, the war on civil liberties to limit dissent, the war on freedom of thought to cripple inquiry and free thinking and criticism, the war on expression to limit media through near monopolistic consolidation and ownership in far right wing owners.
There is a war that W's has showed up fighting--he's at war with us, with our freedoms and our democracy and our lives are at stake.
Feel free to pop up with more AWOL or worse examples.