CNN adopts GOP "cut and run" line to describe Democratic proposals

http://mediamatters.org/items/200512010008

President Bush's November 30 speech rejecting calls for the United States to withdraw from Iraq, CNN American Morning anchor Miles O'Brien claimed that some Democrats "are advocating, essentially, 'cut and run' " policy from Iraq. When Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) objected to that characterization, saying, "I haven't heard anybody 'cut and run,' " O'Brien said: "We've heard that on the street; that's out there." In a similar comment on the November 30 CNN's Your World Today, host Jim Clancy asked Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), "you, and the Democratic Party are not saying 'cut and run'?" Kennedy called the label a "McCarthyism technique," explaining that its practitioners: "state incorrectly the other person's position and then differ with it strongly."

The label "cut and run" has been attached to several Democratic proposals advocating timetables and plans for the eventual withdrawal from Iraq. The phrase has been used by Republicans recently to disparage Democrats' policies and has been repeated by numerous media figures.

On November 15, the Senate rejected, 58-40, a Democratic proposal that would have required the House to clarify its Iraq war strategy and formulate a timetable for troop withdrawal, but upheld, 79-19, a similar Republican initiative. According to The Hill newspaper, Democrats claimed that the Republican plan -- which demanded periodic reporting from the White House on progress in Iraq but omitted any mention of a timetable -- was remarkably similar to the original Democratic proposal. Although Eric Ueland, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist's (R-TN) chief of staff, claimed Republicans drafted their plan first, Sen. John Warner (R-VA) admitted "he decided to take the Democratic proposal and edit it to his satisfaction in an effort to find common ground between the parties on the issue."

Immediately after the vote, Congressional Quarterly reported that in a November 15 Republican media session, the "cut and run" label was used. During the session, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) labeled the original Democratic proposal, "cut and run":

when Cheney goes to jail and Condi moves into his seat.
All it takes is shit like this to get you a top job in this WH!!

reciting that phrase, just like the "flip flopper" phrase they learned to recite last year.

when bush proclaims the great successes (lies) of training iraqi troops has reached the level to begin drawing back troops... that cut and run phrase now being generalized to anything refering of drawing troops down - will be applied to bushco as well.

The irony is that this president seems to have been ruled (whispered in his ears/manipulated by sycophants) by two rules - take the "winning" issues of reagan (esp tax cuts) and avoid the mistake of the father (esp "loosing the momentum from being a popular war president, and being perceived of having "not finishing the job"). In the end he will have done much worse than poppy - and his cut and run phrase will, in the end, stick to him as one of his lasting legacies... but worse yet his legacy will also include creating the unnecessary war in the first place - among other nefarious tags that will plague his dubious legacy as president.

Their only tactic - besides manipulating the press - is to demean the opposition with childish slurs. I've got a news flash for them: the dimmer half of the American public is, at long last, awake and catching on.