You know what I find really really reeeeeeeeeeeeeally interesting right now? [View all]

[WilliamPitt]

For years and years and years and years and years, it seems like Democrats, liberals, progressives (or however one chooses to be defined), have been on the defensive, and for one reason: the GOP, from Lee Atwater to Karl Rove, have been the absolute masters at political ju jitsu. Your strength becomes your weakness, and before you know it, you've been stabbed under the fifth rib and are bleeding out before you realize you've had an accident.

This phenomenon led to a great deal of angst and teeth-gnashing among those of us fighting on the front lines via protests, activism, etc. The cartoon showing a bunch of donkeys looking at a spine and saying, "What is it?" has been around a long while, and for good reason.

Worse, one of the things that happens when you're in retreat is that retreat becomes a habit. We on DU sit and scream WHY ARE YOU SURRENDERING every time it happens...

...but here's the funny part: what was their strength and our weakness has, all of a sudden, gotten reversed.

To wit:

15 Prominent Republicans Who Want Romney To Release More Tax Returns Right Now
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/07/17/530121/15-prominent-republicans-who-want-romney-to-release-more-tax-returns-right-now/

The first law of the GOP, according to St. Reagan, has been "Thou shalt not speak ill of any Republican in public."

But wait...here are all these Republicans who - upon seeing the manner in which these Bain attacks have been unfolding - are now falling over themselves to tell Mitt Romney to (basically) bare his neck to the blade.

They're doing what we've always screamed about: they're retreating, falling upon each other, and defiling St. Reagan's first law.

Which is, frankly, astonishing to me.

This is all bullshit blue-sky conjecture on my part, but...

...I think the GOP spent so many years throwing (and landing) haymakers that they forgot how to take a punch themselves. They're not used to being on the defensive.

And it doesn't seem like they're very good at it.

At all.

Just a thought.