Murtha The Politics of Public Perception

I want to make a guess at the “background” noise of the politics of the recent hyper yelling in the Congress.

Now there are rumors that I am the benevolent tyrant behind the VRWC (Vast Right Wing Conspiracy.) I assure you that my only role in the VRWC is to be it’s Monopoly Tournament Coordinator.

Note: Dubya, its your turn to bring the chips and salsa…some of Laura’s homemade guacamole would be a big hit too.

Regardless of my small role in the VRWC this is my guess (non-informed by anyone other than my over-active guessing ability.)

My guess is this…

President Bush nominates Alito. Democrats scheme to delay his confirmation proceedings until January to investigate and attack him during the last half of November and over the Holidays. Rumors of that attack start circulating and President Bush decides to take over the public dialog by focusing on Democrat hypocrisy over the war. Republican and administration officials turn it up a notch and hang on as the MSM, smelling blood in the water, circles the Democrat hypocrisy issue and keeps it in focus. Democrats cannot go after Alito as previous planned…I mean hello…they have a collective ego to defend… so they delegate the Alito issue to a few special interest groups that live next door to the leftist fringe. They have to respond to the Republicans about the war. They talk to one of their own veterans, Murtha, asking him for his wisdom on the war effort while handing him the list of talking points they want addressed.

They recruit him for the job because he is an American elder. Murtha is warm in appearance and humble in presence. The Republicans have to continue their hard press and hold Murtha accountable, with a very direct refutation of his comments. Unfortunately one Republican lady quotes a very unkind remark on the floor of the house. The democrats are outraged and are given an opportunity they were looking for to paint Republicans as cold heartless warmongers. This was their end goal even as they handed Murtha the talking points list.

So, the Republicans go for another full court press and force a vote in the house on immediate troop withdrawal which fails with only three reps (out of 435) voting for the withdrawal. That is a win for Republicans because now the full house has voted to keep troops in Iraq.

But just as Murtha was manipulated to try and dominate the war debate in favor of the Democrats, the Republicans are actually accomplishing their goal. Why?

Hardly anyone at all in the MSM or the blogosphere are attacking Alito with any gusto. Now that the holidays are here and congress has basically shut up shop…there will only be a couple of weeks to truly attack him after the Holidays. Instead of laying the groundwork last week, they will basically have to start from scratch. Since there really isn’t anything of any credibility to attack Alito on this will make it impossible to not confirm him.

And that is great because Alito rocks!

Now…I am also going to guess that if nothing else takes over the MSM’s attention, we will start to see more of a stepped up effort from leftist groups to lay the groundwork on attacking Alito during the holidays.

Again, I am just guessing and completely reserve the right to be wrong.

Update 12/27/05:I am nominating this at Venemous Kate’s blog as my worst post for this past year. It is very clear that I am just making stuff up. At the time it sounded smart to me. Now it just seems … well … not so smart. Why I did I post this again?

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