I got home from Chicago relatively early on Sunday and so was able to watch a good bit of the Republican debate. What struck me most of all was the defensive crouch the Republican candidates are adopting so often now, especially Mitt Romney whose sort of high pitched whine is becoming his standard tone. But what I noticed as well, watching it so closely on the heels of the Democratic debate in Chicago, was the extent to which they referenced the YearlyKos debate to attack the Democrats for being soft on terror or not supporting the troops. Not surprisingly, they clearly hadn't actually watched the debate, because their attacks were total fabrications.

The first was Duncan Hunter, who said:

I watched the Democrat debate...Not a single Democrat candidate paused in their rush for the exit to say to our Marines, "Good job."

Notice the term "Democrat" as an adjective, a real class act that Hunter. Well, congressman, you see, the thing about video...

Chris Dodd: All of us need to do as well, this policy has been a failure, we all know that in this room. What has not been a failure are the men and women serving at this hour in Iraq and Afghanistan, would you please give them a round of applause as well for doing a good job. [thunderous applause]

Later, Rudy Giuliani got in on the act on the stupid topic of terrorism nomenclature.

...in four Democratic debates, not a single Democratic candidate said the word "Islamic terrorism." Now, that is taking political correctness to extremes.

Except that, of course, John Edwards said essentially that very thing (cue that pesky video again):

John Edwards: There is a very serious threat to America, Osama bin Laden, al qaeda, Islamic jihad, these terrorist groups are real.

And then there was Romney, who invoked the debate to refer to something that didn't even happen during the debate:

At the same time, you look at that Democratic debate, I had to laugh at what I saw Barack Obama do. I mean, in one week he went from saying he's going to sit down, you know, for tea, with our enemies, but then he's going to bomb our allies. I mean, he's gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.

But that didn't stop Barack Obama from hitting back:

The fact that the same Republican candidates who want to keep 160,000 American troops in the middle of a civil war couldn't agree that we should take out Osama bin Laden if we had him in our sights proves why Americans want to turn the page on the last seven years of Bush-Cheney foreign policy.

It's so funny to see the Republicans resorting to 2004 tactics to beat Democrats in this post-2006 world. The fact is that these debates give the Democrats the forum to undermine the 40 years of unrebutted right wing noise machine lies about the Democratic party and the Democrats are using the opportunity to reframe the debate and what it means to be a Democrat. Sure, John Edwards uses some of the preferred rightwing language regarding terrorism but in the next breath calls the war on terror a bumper sticker. Barack Obama wants to withdraw troops out of Iraq by next Arpil but will use targeted strikes against terrorists in Pakistan. The Democrats are smartly co-opting some of what we've been sold as toughness by the rightwing and twisting it to create a new fighting Dem brand. And the reason the Republicans are flailing about attacking it is because they know it's working.

Update [2007-8-7 20:57:59 by Todd Beeton]: OK, Rudy is becoming a parody of himself. Continuing to fight last year's war, he released the following statement prior to tonight's Democratic AFL-CIO debate:

... Giuliani? His campaign's communications director put out this statement on the about-to-start AFL-CIO forum: "Debate after debate, the Democrats ignore the threat of Islamic terrorists and fail to address the Terrorists' War on Us. Yet they have no problem talking about raising taxes on the American people. Each of the leading Democratic candidates has made campaign promises that will lead to tax hikes. It's about time they play it straight with voters and are honest about how much their tax hikes will cost the American public."

Yawn.