GOP's 'Anger' Strategy Has Dems Defensive

What the hell is this?  Appearently it's what passes for a "good story" and a "balanced" headline at the Associated Press.  You know you're in for it when a story starts like this:

GOP's 'Anger' Strategy Has Dems Defensive

By BETH FOUHY, Associated Press Writer

Wed Feb 8, 5:08 PM ET

NEW YORK - The Republican national chairman created a furor this week when he suggested Sen.     Hillary Rodham Clinton is too "angry" to win the White House in 2008. And to hear Republicans tell it, Clinton is just one of many Democrats with an anger management problem.

I don't mean to just use this whole story as my diary entry but it's got to be read to be believed.  It's a GOP meme put out by the AP as a "story".  I'm sure we're all used to this by now, but this Beth Fouhy (pronounced "phooey"?) is a "political coorespondent for CNN and a political writer for the AP.  Here's the rest if you can stand it:

 
Former Vice President Al Gore is angry. So is Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid. The party is held hostage by the "angry left."

In recent months, GOP operatives and officeholders have cast the Democrats as the anger party, long on emotion and short on ideas. Analysts say the strategy has been effective, trivializing Democrats' differences with the GOP as temperamental rather than substantive.

"Angry people are not nice people. They are people to stay away from. They explode now and then," said George Lakoff, a linguistics professor at the University of California at Berkeley. His book "Don't Think of an Elephant" has become something of a Bible for Democrats trying to improve their communication with voters.

Political history is dotted with failed presidential candidates perceived by the voters as too angry -- think of     Howard Dean's famous scream in 2004, or Bob Dole admonishing George H.W. Bush in 1988 to "stop lying about my record." Both parties' most revered figures in recent years,     Ronald Reagan and     Bill Clinton, projected optimism and hope.

Okay...here's the setup...

The latest example of the anger strategy came Sunday, when     Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman said on ABC that Clinton "seems to have a lot of anger." He cited comments she made in Harlem on Martin Luther King Day in which she likened the Republican-led House to a "plantation" and called the Bush administration "one of the worst" in history.

"I don't think the American people, if you look historically, elect angry candidates," Mehlman said.

Okay...and here's the fake semblence of "balance"...

Democrats defended Clinton.

"Democrats want a leader who shares their frustration -- even anger -- about Republican failures," Democratic strategist Dan Newman said. "Anger at terrorists is expected, outrage about corruption is a plus."

Some Democrats, in fact, complained that Clinton doesn't get angry enough. Some also denounced Mehlman as mean-spirited, and smelled more than a whiff of sexism in his remarks.

"It's the stereotype of the crone -- angry, nasty, but powerful," Lakoff said.

RNC spokeswoman Tracey Schmitt dismissed the charge of sexism, saying the anger strategy was fully justified when Democrats launch personal attacks. She cited Dean's description of Republicans as "brain dead" last year, and Reid's calling     President Bush a "loser."

"Whether she's a man or a woman is completely irrelevant. If some Democrats want to fall back on the gender card, that's their prerogative," Schmitt said.

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See the rest of this at AP's website: www.associatedpress.com