Shoe Bomber vs. Underwear Bomber - A Study in Republican Effectiveness

Republican scoundrels are spinning the thwarted terrorist attempt on Christmas Day into a reason to attack President Obama, and the media are repeating the frothing opportunism as if it is legitimate discussion. It's an all-too-familiar pattern of attack and repeat, at a level that leaves thoughtful persons shaking their heads at the breathtaking hypocrisy of it all.

Honestly, it never ever occurred to me to accuse Bush of weakness or failure when the shoe-bomber attempt presented almost exactly the same opportunity to those of us on the left. Foolishly, I viewed the attempted terrorist attack as an attempted terrorist attack, instead of as a welcome cudgel with which to bash our nation's President.

Commenting on a post by Politico noting the wildly different Republican reaction to the two wildly similar situations, John Aravosis of AMERICAblog does a great job of explaining the difference:

I suspect a few things are going on here. First, the shoe bomber incident was three months after September 11. We were all still shell-shocked. Rather than being afraid to criticize the president, I think we were all so scared, the thought didn't even cross our minds (and the same thing applied to the media, which was also tempered following 9/11). Second, Democrats aren't as good at political PR as Republicans are. Republicans are always looking for an opportunity to take advantage of a situation, a crisis. Democrats tend to be more principled. And finally, Republicans are better at shutting down criticism. If Democrats had tried to speak out, the GOP would have accused us of being un-American, and the Democrats would freak.