Welcome to Tuesdays With Maureen

Greetings!

Thanks to Matt for a warm welcome to the wild world of blogging.

It's cherry blossom season in the beltway. Birds are chirping, people are getting engaged, children are playing--but this doesn't stop America's top leaders from arguing about Tom DeLay. And yes, I did just link to USA Today and yes, it is still considered a real newspaper.

I had an interesting discussion with a friend this weekend about this sort of witch-hunt style politics. He, playing the part of a liberal, let me know that his side simply doesn't stoop to the conservative level. When someone like Ann Coulter or Rush Limbaugh sounds off about the lack of ethics in America's left, it would never even OCCUR to a liberal to come back with a similar response. In other words, Democrats are above the fray.

Of course this isn't true. Both sides do it. In fact, I'd argue that conservatives do it better and have more practice from the Clinton years. At any rate, here's a good example of stooping to new low levels. Similarly, conservatives rebuked John Kerry for being anti-American (a successful PR campaign that led to his election demise). This is the nasty side of politics. Take it or leave it.

The next question is then --what does the losing side do? What should Tom DeLay and the GOP do to combat this particular assault? In the Corner on NRO yesterday, I read this idea:

Mr. Goldberg - Something I have noticed, regrettably, for the last thirty years or so, is that Republicans are almost always too slow to react to attacks, appear to be on the defensive most of the time, and lack something I call the "Atwater gene".

Once again, the Democrats have launched a carefully planned, choreographed and executed assault on one of our very best people, Rep. Delay, and here we are, sitting and waiting for the next wave of attacks rather than counter-attacking with everything we've got.

Every attack on Delay was predictable -- heck, it was even announced by Rahm Emmanuel months ago -- and we certainly should have (or at least could easily have) a mountain of data proving that Democrats (think: Harry Reid) have not only done everything Delay has done, but have bent and shredded every ethics requirement ever conceived by Congress!

Why then, are we not calling press conferences, complete with charts and graphs and photos, of Democrats doing everything Delay has done, and much more?? Why are we not attacking the very publicly debauched and corrupt behavior of Sen. Edward Kennedy? How about Nancy Pelosi?

I want to see your wonderful online publication put all of your formidable muscle behind a counter-assault and behind Rep. Delay, who just happens to be a very nice man and one heck of an effective champion of everything conservative.

Look, they couldn't get President Bush because, in the end, his character is well known by Americans, even ones who don't pay much attention. Now, they've trained their sights on a victim who is unknown by most, and if we don't stand up, bare our teeth and support this man, they just might get him.

Then what will we do? Sit around waiting for the next victim? You cannot fight aggressiveness with luke-warm words of support. You have to get dirty with them and kick their teeth in. Make them so afraid of what will happen to them, that they never, ever again go after one of ours.

Do something!!!!

What's your impression of this situation?

Is it better for the GOP to keep quiet and wait for the next new media story? Or should we "take it the mattresses?"