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# Posted 11:39 PM by Ariel David Adesnik

SUNDAY MORNING, PART II: Would you believe that Bob Schieffer got rough with one of his guests? Just take a look at the transcript. Schieffer's four guests were John Murtha, House Armed Services Chair Duncan Hunter, and party chairmen Ken Mehlman and Howard Dean.

Murtha: B-. I'm tempted to say it was the usual Murtha, but actually he was fairly coherent and said nothing outrageous. The closest he came to absurdiy was with his relentless optimism about how much better Iraq will be without the US military. it's an appropriate counterpart to some of the strange bastions of optimism about Iraq in the GOP.

Hunter: C. He speaks well and with conviction. But you really have to wonder which Iraq and which war he's talking about. His comments were pretty much an extended version of the President's unfortunate statement that "Absolutely, we're winning."

Ken Mehlman: B. Mehlman is the one who got a tongue-lashing from Schieffer, who was outraged by a recent ad attacking Harold Ford for his dalliances at the Playboy mansion. I haven't looked at the issue closely, but my limited knowledge of campaign finance law coincides with Mehlman's assertion that the RNC couldn't control the content of the ad. Those with more knowledge of the subject are welcome to comment below.

Howard Dean: C. As Kevin Drum (yes, the liberal Kevin Drum) noted before, Dean has a remarkable ability to reinforce the notion that Democrats have no real interest in security and only want to attack big business. Dean obliged once again by saying that the real war we need to talk about is the "Republican war on the American family." Then he said that people are too worried about the consequences of withdraw form Iraq the same way they were too worried about the consequences of withdrawing from Vietnam. My best guess is that Dean let Mehlman write up his note cards.

(3) opinions -- Add your opinion

Comments:

On Mehlman's point: Assuming there's a firewall preventing people working with Corker's campaign from dealing with the ad, there's still someone at the RNC still has the power to yank ads, right? I don't think the ad merits the attention it's getting. On the other hand, if the ad upsets you, I'm just not sure how blaming BCRA gets the RNC off the hook here.

# posted by

Anonymous : 3:31 AM

The consequences of withdrawing from Vietnam were hugely overstated. 'If we don't stop them here we'll have to fight them in Honolulu or San Francisco.' The Pentagon Papers predicted the fall of several 'dominoes', while in the event only Cambodia and Laos went red.

I don't know how this would play with swing voters who are too young to remember Vietnam. You seem to be assuming that swing voters have been indoctrinated with conservative spin.

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