The statement from the DNC communications director Brad Woodhouse:
The Republicans and their allied groups - desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill - are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.
You'll note that this is the kind of language the president uses when talking about terrorism -- "incitement" and "extremists." This type of language could lead to some confusion as to whether Democrats are able to distinguish between peaceful American voters eager to get involved in the political process and Hamas militants who blow themselves up in shopping malls.
The statement closes with this:
The right wing extremists' use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the President's citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are. This type of anger and discord did not serve Republicans well in 2008 - and it is bound to backfire again.
Am I missing something or isn't this exactly the kind of behavior that Democrats encouraged for the last, oh, five or so years of the Bush administration. You can't put devil horns on a picture of an elected official anymore? And are Democrats really going to complain about people using Nazi imagery to criticize a sitting president? Where was the DNC when MoveOn posted an ad comparing Bush to Hitler? Over on the website of the Atlantic, you can still see Obama's favorite blogger make such comparisons on a daily basis. That type of anger and discord served Democrats very well over the last few years. On the other hand, this new strategy by Democrats to paint their opponents on K Street as extremists, their opponents in industry as "villains," and the voters who question their policies as an "angry mob" -- to me, it seems bound to backfire.
Full statement after the jump.
Statement from DNC Communications Director Brad Woodhouse on the Republican Party and Allied Groups' Mob Rule
The Republicans and their allied groups - desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill - are inciting angry mobs of a small number of rabid right wing extremists funded by K Street Lobbyists to disrupt thoughtful discussions about the future of health care in America taking place in Congressional Districts across the country.
However, much like we saw at the McCain-Palin rallies last year where crowds were baited with cries of 'socialist,' 'communist,' and where the birthers movement was born - these mobs of extremists are not interested in having a thoughtful discussion about the issues - but like some Republican leaders have said - they are interested in ‘breaking' the President and destroying his Presidency.
These mobs are bussed in by well funded, highly organized groups run by Republican operatives and funded by the special interests who are desperately trying to stop the agenda for change the President was elected to bring to Washington. Despite the headline grabbing nature of these angry mobs and their disruptions of events, they are not reflective of where the American people are on the issues - or the hundreds of thousands of thoughtful discussions taking place around kitchen tables, water coolers and in homes.
The right wing extremists' use of things like devil horns on pictures of our elected officials, hanging members of Congress in effigy, breathlessly questioning the President's citizenship and the use of Nazi SS symbols and the like just shows how outside of the mainstream the Republican Party and their allies are. This type of anger and discord did not serve Republicans well in 2008 - and it is bound to backfire again.
