Democrats' Amygdalae Problem: Cold and Calculating as A Town Drunk

The Right Wing Queen of Mean, Michelle Malkin, relates the contents of an internal Democratic Party memo, courtesy of The Hill. The memo states the hypothesis: Democrats' Message Doesn't Appeal to Emotions. An excerpt:

Democrats are losing the battle for voters’ hearts because the party’s message lacks emotional appeal, according to a widely circulated critique of House Democratic communications strategy.

“Our message sounds like an audit report on defense logistics,” wrote Dave Helfert, a former Appropriations spokesman who now works for Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii). “Why are we defending [the State Children’s Health Insurance Program] instead of advocating a ‘Healthy Kids’ plan?”

His memo is sharply critical of Republican policies but also suggests a neurological explanation for Republican message success: By using emotional appeals and warning of dire threats, Republicans can trigger neurons called “amygdalae” in the temporal lobe, which is the seat of the “fight or flight” response in the brain.

To which MM replies:

This is high-larious.

Malken goes on to conclude:

The Democrats’ problem isn’t understimulation of the amygdalae. It’s overstimulation. Perhaps a political lobotomy–separating the nutroots lobe from the party’s thalamus–might be a far more effective prescription.

One only has to recall the Code Pink members of the Democrat base being dragged, screaming, from the room during the Patraeus hearings to understand the cold analysis of the Dem's arguments. Too much logic and resorting to facts; not enough emotion is the problem alright.

Democrat leaders would have had to douse themselves with gasoline and strike a match to get anymore emotional than they were during the SCHIP debate. Every time questions arose about this expansion of government, Democrats would haul another ailing child in front of the cameras and scream "Why do you hate the kids?" Have to admit that prompted visions of a party of CPAs at work.

The Hill had it right: the Democrats' message is a problem with voters. It's the same problem a college student has when faced with the dilemma of a weekend of binge drinking: sure it'll be fun, but you're going to feel like hell when you come to on Monday morning.

The Democrats are as cold and calculating as a town drunk.

The Code Pinks, the welfare lobby, the big-government types of the Democrat base are binge drinkers. But it's the voters, their children and grandchildren, who are going to be paying for their financial debauchery.

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Turkey: The Latest US Ally to Discover "Treachery, Thy Name is Democrat"

by Mondoreb

What is it about Democrats that makes throwing an American ally under the bus so irresistible to them? It's as if Dems were teen-age boys on a Saturday night and any country supporting the U.S. is a rival standing in their way of the cute girl in the tight sweater.

The latest American interest to be sacrificed on the alter of Democratic special interest group pandering is Turkey. From CNN:

-- Turkey on Thursday recalled its ambassador to the United States and warned of repercussions in a growing dispute over congressional efforts to label the World War I era killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turkish forces "genocide."

The U.S. House Committee on Foreign Affairs passed the measure 27-21 Wednesday. President Bush and key administration figures lobbied hard against the measure, saying it would create unnecessary headaches for U.S. relations with Turkey.

Turkey -- now a NATO member and a key U.S. ally in the war on terror -- accepts Armenians were killed but call it a massacre during a chaotic time, not an organized campaign of genocide.

Anna explains:
[The House committee] passed a non-binding resolution condemning Turkey for the 1917 massacre of Armenians during World War I. What the resolution fails to acknowledge is the modern country of Turkey is not the same as the Ottoman Turkey country that did carry out the pogrom.

The Democrats wanted to make a statement about the Armenian genocide. But why anger a key U.S. ally over events of 88 years ago? Why now, at this paticular moment? The Turks would like to know too.

But, unlike the House Republicans under Bob Michael, pre-Contract with America, Turkey wasn't timid at tongue-lashing the Party whose symbol is an ass.

"Yesterday some in Congress wanted to play hardball," said Egemen Bagis, foreign policy adviser to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. "I can assure you Turkey knows how to play hardball.

But misery loves company and Turkey wouldn't be lonely. A quick look at the Dem agenda reveals a key component of Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi & Company's political agenda is cutting off aid to another country important to American interests: Iraq. Democrats have a knack for, a history of and an uncontrollable urge for leaving countries who depend on the U.S. in the lurch.

Flashback: Viet Nam

From History News Network:
In the fall of 1974, Nixon resigned under the pressure of the Watergate scandal and was succeeded by Gerald Ford. Congress cut funding to South Vietnam for the upcoming fiscal year from a proposed 1.26 billion to 700 million dollars. These two events prompted Hanoi to make an all-out effort to conquer the South. As the North Vietnamese Communist Party Secretary Le Duan observed in December 1974: “The Americans have withdrawn…this is what marks the opportune moment.”

South Vietnam need our promised aid and Democrats voted to kill it. The results were the famous pictures of the last Americans leaving Saigon via helicopters--while another erstwhile America ally stood broken-hearted. The only comfort they get today are Democrat denials that their actions caused any mass killings of South Vietnamese.

And of course, Jimmy Carter--lately in the news for giving advice, historical insights and criticism of all things non-Carter--stepped up to the plate when the Shah of Iran, another solid U.S. ally, was in need of our help. Carter was called out on strikes, looking.

American Thinker explains:

When Carter became President he created a special Office of Human Rights which sent a letter to the Shah of Iran as a "polite reminder" of the importance of political rights and freedom. In response the Shah released over 350 Islamic fundamentalist prisoners who would later play roles in the Islamic Revolution and Iran Hostage crisis. Carter also ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to stop paying religious Mullahs over 4 million dollars in bribes. This monetary support was agreed upon, so the Mullahs would tone down their anti-Shah and anti-Western rhetoric.

Facing an Islamic revolution, the Shah appealed to Carter for help. On November 4, 1978 U.S. National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski called the Shah and said the United States would "back him to the hilt." This would never be the case. Brzezinski insisted to Carter that the U.S. must encourage the Shah to "brutally suppress the revolution". State Department officials believed Carter should reach out to the Revolutionaries in order to smooth the transition to a new government. This was a deciding moment in world history. Carter decided not to take either recommendation and to this very day, the world is suffering the consequences of his indecisiveness.

So really, if the Turkish ambassador had been studying his political history of the United States over the last 35 years, this week's action by the Democrat-controlled House committee should have come as no great surprise. He would have realized what history watchers already know: when there's a political calculus to be ciphered, Democrats figure U.S. allies as a zero.

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PAPERCUTS EXCLUSIVE!:Bill Richardson: "I Will Not Live in Fear"BUSH JUST AS BAD AHMADINEJAD

by Mondoreb

Democrat Presidential candidate Bill Richardson has a message for the people he's appealing to: American President George Bush is no better than Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Richardson is seemingly reaching out to the crew at TheDailyKOS.

An online poll conducted this week at the "new center of the Democratic Party"'s website was revealing: In an election matchup between Bush and Ahmadinejad, Bush narrowly squeaked out a 52-45% win. Little Green Footballs captured a screen shot of the poll. The Left's favorite response to any discovery of how they really think is "Satire!" No on remembered it this time.

This did not go undetected by Democrats. The following is a letter sent out by Richardson's campaign this morning.

Dear (my name),

Yesterday, the Presidents of Iran and of the United States both addressed the United Nations.

In his speech, Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, confirmed what we already knew: he is a demagogue and a despot.

And in his own speech, our President, George W. Bush, confirmed something else we already knew: he is a fearmonger, whose unwillingness to use diplomacy to confront our enemies has made America less safe.

Just like before their reckless invasion of Iraq, President Bush and Vice President Cheney have been rattling sabers about Iran's nuclear program and about how all options are on the table in regard to military force. It's "axis of evil" all over again!

This kind of rhetoric does not help America's strategic interests or improve the stability of that troubled region.

The letter then makes an appeal for a $50 donation.

Like a Christmas present, the morning mail many times brings surprises. Some cause delight and some cause one to roll their eyes. The letter in question causes one to close thier eyes, pondering the curious position of the Democrat Party on foreign affairs. By kowtowing to the unhinged few who blog among them, Democrats are forcing a debate next year in which are they are taking an unsettling position. According to this letter, that position seems to be:
George Bush is no better than a man who has vowed to destroy the United States.

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TODAY's DEMOCRAT PARTY: No Shoes, No Shirt, No Leadership

by Mondoreb
The Democrat Party has control of the Senate(Harry Reid), control of the House(Nancy Pelosi) and more presidential candidates than Rosie has chins. From these vast resources, one would think that a leader would emerge--any leader.

Yet, nothing save the same tired rhetoric stumbles from these strongholds. Whether it is nurturing and preserving capital in the world's bastion of Capitalism or fighting the War on Terror, responsible Americans tune out the Dems.

New ideas? Forget it, the Democrats (and liberals in general) have had only one interesting idea in the last 40 years: using tax credits as an innovative method of financing Social Security reform. However, as this is an issue that Dems refuse to even discuss, it's almost an 0-for.

The Democrats leadership was on display this week at the Petraeus hearings: pandering to "new center of the Democratic Party", the DailyKOS kooks, Democrat after Democrat exhibited the usual eternal thirst for trying to score political points. There was no interest in leading Americans anywhere, except perhaps into one of the myriad interest groups which make up the modern Dem party.

A vigorous nation has to have two viable political parties in order to thrive. Ideas need to be debated seriously. When one side effects the attitude of 17-year-old Valley Girls--I'm bored, it's too hard to be serious--the national conversation on vital issues suffers. When you have no new ideas, the only strategy is to smear anyone who disagrees the Dem viewpoint.

The Democrats spend millions on political consultants. Is there not one who will honestly say, "Americans have only given us a majority of votes in a presidential election 3 times in the last 58 years. Something is wrong"?

History will be fair to G.W. Bush for undertaking and persevering in a war that has become unpopular. Harry Truman's historical stock is far higher now than it was during the Korean War. History will largely assign today's Democrats to the dungheap, along side their ancestors in the Copperhead wing of the Democratic Party during the Civil War.

Leadership means getting out in front, explaining unpopular issues to the electorate and expending political capital for the 'good fight'. The Dems of today are the rigid, reactionary government Establishment: carping, criticizing, destructive. If they wish to be more than the sad collection of pandering hacks they've become, they'll have to take time out from their focus groups; stop their political hair-splitting; stop putting their collective fingers in the wind.

Propose some constructive alternatives and drop the Valley Girl whine.
Red Planet

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