Stand Up GOP--The Democrats are Scared

Yesterday, Matt Stoller said that one of the reasons the Democrats caved on the Iraq funding bill was the the Democrats were scared!? that the GOP was going to criticized them on the matter of including a timetable. While it is true that the GOP would criticized the Democrats on the matter, it would have been true regardless of whether the timetable was included or not.

Today, Lorie Byrd makes the case that the GOP needs to take a cue from The View's Elizabeth Hasselbeck and stand up to liberal rhetoric, not just about Iraq, but about everything:

Myths are born when an untrue statement is repeated frequently enough, and loudly enough, that many come to believe the statement must be true because they have heard it said over and over again, usually with no refutation. For too long conservatives have allowed statements like Bush “stole the election” and “lied us into war” to be repeated with little if any opposition. When outrageous statements are first made it often seems unnecessary to bother refuting claims that are demonstrably untrue. That was the case with the kooky 9/11 “truther” claims that floated around the internet. The claims that the US government played a role in the 9/11 attacks were treated by most as something only tinfoil hat-wearing Bush haters could possibly believe and most (including me) chose not to dignify them by bothering to respond. Popular Mechanics debunked the various 9/11 conspiracy theories in book form, after all, and to most (again including me) it seemed unnecessary to bother pointing out something so obvious.

though. They continued to spread the 9/11 conspiracy theories and even enlisted the support of celebrities like Charlie Sheen and Rosie O’Donnell. What has been the result? Recent polls show that “Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent of Democrats believe he did know, 39% say he did not know and 26% are not sure." The lesson we should learn from this is that any inaccurate claim that is made, regardless of how outrageous or seemingly unbelievable, must be vigorously refuted as loudly and frequently as possible, getting all available facts into the public arena so that such unfounded theories are not allowed to take hold in the first place. Conservatives cannot depend on those in the media to do this. Too often reporters simply give public figures a microphone to say anything they please, not offering any fact-checking whatsoever.

These two items are so related that it should seem obvious.

Democrats in Congress and looney liberals like Rosie O'Donnell tend to make statements that are either at odds with the truth or at odds with what America needs or both. What America needs is the truth and if the Democrats don't want to speak the truth, it is up to the GOP and Americans in general to speak the truth.

That is the lesson of Stoller's diagnosis and Byrd's call to action, Democrats can't stand to hear the cold hard facts nor can they stand up to the pressure of supporting their assertions with cold hard facts. In either case, cold hard facts scare the Democrats. Use them as weapons.