Going Over the Line on Iraq

Republican pollster Frank Luntz, who advises candidates in that party on key words to use in a campaign, is quoted in the WashPost over the weekend saying that "statements like that can cause a backlash" against the accuser. "Candidates have to be careful of going over the line," he said.

Statements like what? you ask.

Calling Democrats, especially John Kerry, traitors, that's what.

Appearing in the Rose Garden last Thursday with Iraq's puppet prime minister, Ayad Allawi, Bush said Kerry's statements about Iraq "can embolden an enemy."

On Tuesday, Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said terrorists "are going to throw everything they can between now and the election to try and elect Kerry." On Fox News, Hatch said Democrats are "consistently saying things that I think undermine our young men and women who are serving over there."

Sunday a week ago, GOP Senate candidate John Thune of South Dakota said of his opponent, Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle: "His words embolden the enemy." Thune, on NBC's "Meet the Press," declined to disavow a statement by the Republican Party chairman in his state saying Daschle had brought "comfort to America's enemies."

Oh, nice guys, these people!

"Rhetoric this sharp and ugly is not by any means brand-new, [but] what we're seeing now isn't just offhand comments by outliers but clearly a decision by the Republican hierarchy to put this charge out there consistently," said Jeff Shesol, a speechwriter for President Bill Clinton and author of a book about Lyndon B. Johnson and Robert F. Kennedy.

We saw a bumpersticker over the weekend in a Virginia shopping mall: "9 out of 10 terrorists agree ... John Kerry for President!"

This is beyond a politics of "win at any cost." This is the politics of shutting up all dissent. It used to be done back in my heyday by accusing your opponents of being "commies" or "commie-sympathizers," the infamous "red-baiting" of the '60s and '70s.

Now it's giving aid and comfort to terrorists. Keeps going this way and it might get really ugly ... like linking Democrats to G-A-Y-S!

But let the backlash begin!