One of my fascinations with blogging is in meta themes. We do know that the Conservatives are much more organized in this field - together with Common Cause, the Koch Brothers hold an annual strategy meeting to discuss these wide-reaching memes.
One of my observances during the past few months is to see rightwing bloggers adopt an anti-war position. Not to say that they're against military operations - far from it - but they have been changing tacks and pushing the idea that Obama promised to withdraw from the wars and that is a yet unfilled promise. Lately, they have been spending a lot of time reminding the Liberals that we are supposed to be against the wars.
The Conservatives are straddling an interesting juxtaposition, supporting the war while trying to convince the liberals that they've been betrayed.
I remember thinking that it was odd to see the Republicans morph their positions on the war. Initially I had attributed it to a simple "Bush = Good, Obama = Bad" logic but the more I think about it, the more I believe their goal is to remind the Liberals that we collectively abhor unnecessary violence. That word "unnecessary" is the key to that sentence, as part of the conservatives strategy has been to remind the Liberals that many of us do feel the wars are unnecessary.
And so they have set about chipping away far-left support for Barack Obama.
Long before the book came out, Republicans said that Democrats are the "mommy party" and Republicans are the "daddy party." This plays into the codpiece-wearing Commander Bush persona, Ronald Reagan plays John Wayne in a B Movie.
But in a single day, Barack Obama destroyed the foundations of Republican political strategy.
Their memes are destroyed. Democrats are no longer seen as weak. Nor do Republicans still own the mantle of National Security.
And the worst part of it all (from the GOP point of view) is that it solidifies Democratic support for our foreign policy.
Obama hit a two-fer: He invalidated a decade of Republican meme building, and simultaneously coalesced his base.