RNC Attacks Reid - For Telling The Truth

Given the group of unprincipled, lying hacks who sit atop the Republican leadership, either in government or in the GOP's infrastructure, it's not surprising that they would send out an e-mail yesterday attacking Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to high heaven for -- gasp! -- telling the truth.

As Attorney General Alberto Gonzales showed while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, Republicans can find more ways to lie than David Vitter has hookers' cell phone numbers so naturally they find it incredibly offensive when a Democrat speaks truth that makes them and their sorry excuse for a president look as horrible as they really are.

So here's the Republican National Committee's (RNC) Chief Smearmeister Robert M. (Mike) Duncan, sending out an e-mail to his lemming-like followers yesterday and accusing Reid of what Republicans would consider unpardonable truth-telling. Specifically, they call him on the following statements about George W. Bush:

• "Reid Called The President A 'Liar.' CBS' Bob Schieffer: 'You like him just fine, but you think he's a liar?' Sen. Reid: '[H]is policies--well, Bob, if you--I don't think we need to dwell on that, but I call them the way I see them.'"

• "Reid: 'He's violated the rights of the Constitution in many different ways. He's been here as part of a culture of corruption. ... [H]e's spying on Americans. ... [T]he Justice Department is now a hiss and a byword.'"

• "Reid Previously Called President Bush A Loser.' 'Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid called President Bush 'a loser' during a civics discussion with a group of teenagers at a high school on Friday. ... 'I think this guy is a loser.'"

OK, and all of this is a problem why? Anyone who still thinks Bush is anything but the worst president in U.S. history is probably so jacked up on thorazine that they can barely stand, so the judgment that Bush is a "loser" is probably a mild way to express the way most Americans feel.

And, he's leading the most corrupt government in most people's lifetimes, has spied on Americans without required warrants and has debased the Constitution in so many ways the Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. And is Bush a liar? Please. Americans came to that realization many times over, a long time ago.

Indeed, an April 2007 USA Today/Gallup poll, showed that just 41 percent of Americans thought President Bush was honest and trustworthy, while a June 2007 L.A. Times/Bloomberg poll, had 51 percent of respondents saying they thought Bush's credibility had decreased while in office.

Next.

• "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Called Marine Gen. Peter Pace, The Outgoing Chairman Of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff, 'Incompetent' During An Interview ... With A Group Of Liberal Bloggers ..."

Well, kinda, sorta, he did. I was on that call and, as I've written before, Reid was describing a private conversation he had with Pace, one-on-one in his office and he told us he had questioned Pace's leadership to his face and said his performance was incompetent.

And who is ready to stand up and give anyone in the military hierarchy praise for how amazingly well the Iraq occupation is going and how expertly it's been executed? It can't be the 70 percent of Americans who now believe the Iraq debacle is a lost cause and should be abandoned -- I guess we're all as bad as Reid in the RNC's glazed, beady little eyes.

Hitting on the continued low approval ratings for the Congress, the RNC slime message included this:

• "Americans' Confidence In The Dem Congress Hit An All-Time Low Of Only 14 Percent. 'According to Gallup, just 14% of people express confidence in the current Congress. That's the lowest measure in the 34 years Gallup has been tracking government institutions.'"

The reality is that when it comes to the major issue confronting the nation -- the Iraq quagmire -- the Washington Post reported Tuesday that 55 percent of respondents to a recent poll said they trust Congressional Democrats on the war, compared with 32 percent who said they trust Bush. And by 2 to 1, Americans said Congress, rather than the president, should make the final decision about when to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq.

The fact is that the aggregate Congressional approval rating has been falling since 2002 under Republican leadership and it's unreasonable to expect that Democrats can reverse that trend in just six months.

The RNC even had the nerve to cite the opinion of one writer, Washington Post columnist David Broder, who earlier this year called Reid "an embarrassment to the Democrats."

Of course, the truly embarrassing thing the GOP doesn’t want to mention is that following Broder's silly column, all 50 of Reid's colleagues in the Senate Democratic Caucus signed a letter rebutting Broder's nonsense, saying "In contrast to Mr. Broder's insinuations, we believe Mr. Reid is an extraordinary leader who has effectively guided the new Democratic majority through these first few months with skill and aplomb."

And, by the way, even Joe Lieberman, who opposes Reid at every level on the Iraq occupation, signed that letter.

But those facts don’t play into the Republican narrative on Reid, which would be like the smears they used on John Kerry in 2004, Max Cleland in 2002 and their own, John McCain in 2000 except that they mostly cite things that Reid actually said -- what a concept for them.

The truth may hurt them at the RNC, but it doesn’t make Reid wrong for telling it.

I predict next week, they'll say Majority Leader Reid called Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney criminals, declared Scooter Libby a liar and accused Mark Foley of chasing teenagers around the halls of Congress.

The RNC will then fire off a really indignant e-mail asking how Harry Reid could say such things.