GUEST WORDS - All the old rules of politics are gone. The new "wisdom" is not to search for your opponent's weakness but, on the contrary, attack his strengths. Thus the Republicans went after John Kerry, a decorated war hero with two purple hearts, as a weak-kneed liberal and a coward in battle. Shameless but effective.
The last presidential election cycle they went after Obama as an elitist, Harvard educated snob, disconnected from real Americans. This against an African-American whose mother had to accept welfare. Really? Again shameless.
Now, since the default charge against all Democrats is that they're weak on defense, they are going after Obama for bragging that under his leadership General Motors is alive and Osama is dead." They call this unseemly and "spiking the ball" and politicizing what should have been an all American moment of unity.
Of course this is utter hypocrisy. Had George W gotten Osama he would certainly have spiked the ball, called mission accomplished and swaggered. The Democrats would have complained as passionately, opportunistically and disingenuously as the Republicans are complaining now.
Had Obama not ordered the hit, they would also be complaining. This is just how we play this season. The Dems will go after Romney not just on the policies he supports but also on his accomplishments.
They will wedge him with his healthcare legislation in Massachusetts and attack his record as a successful businessman. They'll go at his strength and record every job out-sourced and every worker laid off. His perspicacity in diversifying his investments will show a lack of commitment and his harboring money in the Caribbean and Switzerland will not be prudence but treason.
This strategic doctrine of attacking the opponent's strength is designed to take away the ability to run on a record and put the other side on the defensive. It makes perfect sense. You try to make the other side run on their failures and deny them any accomplishments at all--or at least act as if reporting your record was ungentlemanly and improper.
This is an audacious strategy and the only way to defeat it is to ignore it and double-down on your accomplishments. Obama must not be prodded into being diffident about either the bailout or ordering the hit on Osama. He knows that whatever he does will be picked apart and spun into dishonorable failure, downright treason, or when possible, both.
This is the time to brag, to assert that these two major accomplishments were both, at the time, opposed by Romney. If he doesn't have the guts to say this loud and proud, he won't be the president next term and wouldn't deserve the office. I have every confidence that he will go for it with gusto and élan. No coward he, he won't be cowed.
Obama killed Osama. Deal with it.
(Jonathan Dobrer is an op-ed contributor to the Daily News and Friendly Fire and is a syndicated columnist. This column was posted first at Friendly Fire. More on Jonathan and his books at www.Dobrer.com)
-cw
Tags: Jonathan Dobrer, President Obama, Osama bin Laden, George Bush
CityWatch
Vol 10 Issue 36
Pub: May 4, 2012
