Democrats need to take a page from the Republican strategic playbook. What page/strategy? Hit them where they're
strong (not where they're weak -- everyone knows where they're weak). And, where are they still strong? Terrorism.
Fortunately, doing this is easy right now. The G.O.P. is so desperate to focus on terrorism (the only thing on which they remain stronger than the Democrats) that they've resurrected their own most glaring weak spot: Osama bin Laden. Every Democratic politician who's interviewed on any program needs to parrot the same thing every time bin Laden's name is mentioned: Tora Bora. Whenever Osama's name comes up, Democrats need to say, "President Bush had Osama bin Laden cornered in Tora Bora. Bush let bin Laden get away because he thought Iraq, which had no terrorist activity or connection to 9/11, was a more important priority. So, what has been the result? Iraq is now a hotbed of terrorism, and the Taliban is again gaining ground in Afghanistan. Oh, and Osama bin Laden is again making threats against the American people."
This response not only reminds (or, for most of the American public, informs) the audience that Bush could have had bin Laden five years ago but still hasn't gotten him, but it equates Bush with: (1) terrorist instability in Iraq and (2) terrorist instability in Afghanistan. The Democrats need to
keep harping on this message for the next two months (Kerry used it in the 2004 debates, but not consistently, and it's been pretty well dropped since then). It would go a long way toward undermining Americans' false belief in Republican strength on terrorism.
It should be painfully clear by now that the mainstream media is not going to disabuse the American public of the misperception that the White House, and Republicans in general, are stronger than Democrats on anti-terrorism. The media has doggedly refused to focus the American public's attention on the facts of the Bush administration's failures (both before and after 9/11) in anti-terrorism. Hell, they are so in bed with BushCo that they (Disney/ABC, at least, not to mention every newspaper and other medium that praised the "accuracy" of "The Path to 9/11") have desperately pushed a falsified - in fact, a completely inverted - history of the Clinton and Bush administrations' commitment to anti-terrorism and pursuit of terrorists, especially with respect to bin Laden and Al Qaeda.
With respect to bin Laden's escape from Tora Bora, God knows that they've had plenty of opportunity. The Christian Science Monitor first raised the question of bin Laden's escape in December 2001 and then on March 4, 2002 described the whole sordid story in detail.
The success of the US [in Afghanistan] was dazzling, save for the fight for Tora Bora, which may have been this unconventional war's most crucial battle. For the US, Tora Bora wasn't about capturing caverns or destroying fortifications - it was about taking the world's most wanted terrorist "dead or alive."
In retrospect, it becomes clear that the battle's underlying story is of how scant intelligence, poorly chosen allies, and dubious military tactics fumbled a golden opportunity to capture bin Laden as well as many senior Al Qaeda commanders.
The media won't cover facts, just feelings and perceptions. So, the Democrats need to use that to their own advantage. They can hang a lot of perception and feeling on one small but crucial fact: Bush let bin Laden get away because he was more concerned about Iraq -- which he knew was unconnected to 9/11 -- than he was about Osama bin Laden, who he knew had ordered the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Since the majority of Americans finally realize that Iraq has (or, at least, had) nothing to do with anti-American terrorism, they are now ready to make the proper connection, that is, that Bush has made us less safe by letting bin Laden escape from Afghanistan and creating havoc in Iraq.
Democrats should, of course, have some facts - preferably from government and/or military sources - to back up their talking point, just in case interviewers or Republicans challenge them. Fortunately, this is easy, too. They can quote a State Department world terrorism report from 2000 to prove that Iraq's focus was on its own expatriate dissidents and that it had "not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 in Kuwait" (p. 33 -- this would also remind Americans that Bush acted more out of personal vengeance than out of concern for American security).
As for blaming the escape on Bush's redirection of American troops to Iraq, what could be better than quoting the field commander for the CIA's Jawbreaker team at Tora Bora, Gary Berntsen? In a Newsweek interview about his book, Jawbreaker, Berntsen (a decorated, career CIA officer) stuck to his accusation against Bush and said, in response to Gen. Tommy Franks' contention that the U.S. didn't know for certain that bin Laden was in Tora Bora,
"[Tommy Franks] was not on the ground out there. I was."
A Pentagon document released last year pursuant to an Associated Press FOIA request confirms Berntsen's story that bin Laden escaped from Tora Bora.
Finally, any questioning of the Democratic Tora Bora talking point would provide an opportunity to resurrect from weekend oblivion the just-released Senate Intelligence Committee report, which concluded that Iraq had no ties with Al Qaeda and that the intelligence agencies basically said as much (pp. 60ff).
So, Democrats need to hit Republicans where it really hurts them - on terrorism. They need to do it every chance they get. They need to make up chances to do it. Of course, there are plenty of other specific examples of White House/Republican incompetence on anti-terrorism, including much more current ones (petting zoos in Indiana over New York landmarks as potential terrorist targets?), but this is the one with the greatest emotional impact.
Emotion = perception: get it, Democratic leadership?