I'm just loving the RNC's new slogan, "HYPE & BLAME", for the 2012 presidential campaign. In fact, I think it's awesome. Because as everyone knows, Republicans (a term that for the purpose of this diary includes the GOP's sundry media enablers and fans) have never hyped anything, and have certainly never blamed anyone but themselves for anything, since they are, after all, the party of "responsibility."
I think we liberal Obamabots need to remember that:
- Republicans never hyped George W. Bush's foreign-policy credentials or terrorism-fighting prowess.
- Republicans never hyped the threat posed by Iraq, Saddam Hussein and his WMDs.
- Republicans never hyped the effectiveness of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques™.
- Republicans never hyped the economic benefits of Tax Cuts™, and of not taxing The Job Creators™.
- Republicans never hyped Ronald Reagan's fiscal conservatism or his single-handedly ending the Cold War.
- Republicans never hyped Sarah Palin.
But more importantly:
- Republicans blamed themselves, not President Clinton and not the intelligence community, and took responsibility for the intelligence failures that enabled the 9/11 attacks.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not state and local Democratic officials, and took responsibility for the inadequate emergency response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not Democrats, and took responsibility for the decision to invade Iraq, the failure to find WMDs there, and the many disastrous consequences and costs (fiscal, human and otherwise) of that war.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not Democrats and not the "liberal media," and took responsibility for the decline in public support for the Iraq war.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not the "liberal media," and took responsibility for the decline in President Bush's approval ratings in his second term.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not the Democratic-controlled 110th Congress, and took responsibility for the economic collapse that occurred in the last quarter of 2008.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not some lone Democratic congressman, and took responsibility for the lax regulatory enforcement environment in the mid-2000s that led the banks to make and sell off all those bad mortgages that in turn led to the housing/credit crisis.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not Democrats and not President Obama, and took responsibility for the TARP bank bailouts of 2008 and their costs.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not Democrats and not President Obama, and took responsibility for the surge in unemployment that occurred in 2008-2009.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not Democrats and not President Obama, and took responsibility for enacting the policies to which the lion's share of the current federal budget deficit (and national debt) are directly attributable.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not Democrats and not President Obama, and took responsibility for turning surpluses into deficits in 2001-2003 and more than doubling the national debt from $5T to $11T from 2001 to 2009.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not the "liberal media", not ACORN and not "voter fraud", and took responsibility for their electoral losses in 2006 and 2008.
- Republicans blamed themselves, not Democrats, and took responsibility for the national debt more than quadrupling from less than $1T in 1980 to more than $4T in 1992.
See? Republicans are absolutely right to criticize President Obama for hyping his own accomplishments and blaming Republicans for things, because Republicans have never, ever done that. In fact, no person running for office has ever hyped his own accomplishments and blamed things on his political opponents. It's just not an acceptable way to campaign.
It's just not.