Posted February 9th, 2010 5:58 am

Since September 11, 2001, the Republican Party showed that it was more than willing to ignore the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, and instead use terrorism as a scare issue, starting with the 2002 mid-term elections. It also showed it was willing to infer that the Democratic Party and its candidates were traitors to the country because they weren’t as tough on terrorism. That of course was added to the old attack mode of portraying Democratic leaders as more likely to tax and spend and cause huge deficits.

Sunday’s Courier-Journal editorial ripped the lid off the Republican chicanery. And the GOP also appears to be unwittingly painting itself into a corner: by obstructing everything the President seeks to do, including punishing terrorists, the GOP may be about to put itself in a very awkward position of appearing to being protecting terrorist defendants. That could become a catastrophic error if that protection came along with any subsequent terrorism attacks, which could then be laid as caused by the Republicans failing to fund efforts to protect the United States. From the editorial:

Someone should send a comprehensive history of the United States since World War II to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. It might open his eyes to just how groundless many of his public pronouncements really are.
Take, for example, the tired old saw from Sen. McConnell and other Republicans that Democrats are the party of spending and deficits.
Well, no. There is the little problem of the obvious journey from a budget surplus under Bill Clinton to massive debt incurred under George W. Bush — thanks to tax cuts for the rich that reaped negligible overall economic benefits, two unfunded wars and a new Medicare drug entitlement without means to pay for it. All that was done under Republican leadership, with Sen. McConnell’s help.
But there’s more to it than that. Historically, deficits rise higher and faster during Republican administrations than Democratic ones. The low deficits of the Kennedy-Johnson years were exceeded during the Nixon-Ford tenure. Deficits grew markedly under Ronald Reagan, and they soared under the second President Bush. Moreover, it was former Vice President Dick Cheney who famously declared, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter.” (He was wrong.)
But finger-pointing about deficits, debt and the federal budget is at least pretty standard politics. What Sen. McConnell did the other day — when he accused the Obama administration of “a pre-9/11 mind-set” on national security that places “symbolism over security” and “is a very dangerous route” — is simply beyond the pale of responsible, patriotic leadership. He compounded the problem by threatening to block federal funds to try terrorist detainees in the United States.

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