Whatever the motives behind putting the Path to 911 on air, if it goes to air then the short term and long term political impact will depend on one simple issue: whether the Democratic response can walk and chew gum at the same time.
On the one hand, for the long term, it is essential to punish ABC and Disney for their role in the Path to 911 (PT911). This is needed to undermine the present presumption that the radical right cannot be provoked, but they can be pandered to with impunity.
However, it is also necessary to construct and broadcast a narrative that grabs the bull by the horns and leverages the broadcast of the PT911 for maximum political benefit in the fight to gain control of one or both Chambers. And that is the focus of this diary.
There is going to be an ongoing effort by the netroots to dig up all the dirt on the Path To 911 story. Along the way, there will be interesting leads that go nowhere, claims and charges that turn out to be inflated, claims and charges that turn out to be understated, and so on.
That's good, and that should continue, and God or Whatever Higher Principle You Ascribe To (GWHPYAT) bless the netroots for that. But in terms of maximum political impact over the next 58 days, there's a lot to be said for the good old ditto-head mass talking point. It punches through the noise of the mediasphere and makes it past the limited attention span of the typical American mediaviewer through the simple act of repetition from multiple sources in multiple media channels.
Element One: It Must Be Linked to Republicans by Association. The most direct association is Disney's Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications, Zenia Mucha, former aide to Republican Senator D'Amato and Republican Governer Pataki.
Talking point One: "Zenia Mucha is a former Republican aide and Disney's Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications. She will certainly defend the decision to put these lies on the air. But lying about 9/11 for partisan political purposes is indefensible."
Element Two: The Majority of People want to believe Clinton Good, Bush Bad. Clinton Good, Bush Bad must be repeated. And given the text of the smear against Clinton, it is important to transfer the smear to Bush in the subtext.
Talking point Two: "Bush was the only one distracted from a clear shot at Osama. He was too excited by the idea of occupying Iraq."
Element Three: Tie it explicitly into the current election cycle.
Talking point Three: "Bush wants to use 9/11 and the threat of terror to hold onto a Rubber Stamp Republican Congress for the last two years of his Presidency."
Now ... well, not right now, but after you have completely deconstructed these talking points and replaced them with an upgrades V2.0, presuming that you can do that in short order ... the question is how to get these talking points into the mouths of people who will make a maximum media splash on Monday, to spoil Bush's speech on monday night.
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