Says Who?

The administration's newest line of attack for the mid-term election is up and running.

Bush suggested last week that Democrats are promising voters to block additional money for continuing the war. Vice President Cheney this week said critics "claim retreat from Iraq would satisfy the appetite of the terrorists and get them to leave us alone." And Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, citing passivity toward Nazi Germany before World War II, said that "many have still not learned history's lessons" and "believe that somehow vicious extremists can be appeased."

Gee, that sounds like a real winner; scaring up Neville Chamberlain, Munich, and grainy film images of storm troopers marching through Prague are guaranteed to make the evening news, Godwin's Law notwithstanding. The problem with that, though, is no one is suggested that we "appease" terrorists or cut off funding, and there are several prominent Republicans who are now advocating a timetable for withdrawing from Iraq.

Pressed to support these allegations, the White House yesterday could cite no major Democrat who has proposed cutting off funds or suggested that withdrawing from Iraq would persuade terrorists to leave Americans alone. But White House and Republican officials said those are logical interpretations of the most common Democratic position favoring a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq.

[...]

Democrats contended that the statements went too far. "Maybe there are some people in America who do not want to fight the war on terror, but I do not know them," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said yesterday. "We Democrats want to fight a very strong war on terror. No one has talked about appeasement."

The White House strategy of equating Democratic dissent with defeatism worked during the 2002 and 2004 elections, but it could prove more difficult this time. Some Republicans, such as Rep. Christopher Shays (Conn.), line up with Democrats in seeking a timetable for a withdrawal from Iraq. When Bush and his allies accuse those favoring such a timetable of "self-defeating pessimism," as Cheney put it this week, they risk spraying friendly fire on some of their own candidates.

So basically the White House strategy is to make shit up about their opponents and flail around like whirling dervishes, not really caring who they hit.

Do we detect the distinctive odor of desperation?

Keith Olbermann lets Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld have it. Watch it here.