By Bennet Kelley

The Republican strategy for the fall campaign was simple — use the anniversary of Sept. 11 and Congressional votes on national security issues to define the debate and put the Democrats on the defensive, then spend October hammering the Democrats en route to victory in November.

Instead, October began with the Republicans on the defensive and November looking very bleak as the Republicans’ national security record collapsed like a house of cards under the weight of revelation after revelation of incompetence and mismanagement.

Throughout September, the Republican mantra was “we are safer, but not safe,” as we were told that our safety depended on “the battle on the streets of Baghdad,” legalizing torture and giving the president a blank check to listen in on our phone conversations which the “Defeatocrats” wrongly opposed. At the same time, the right wing propaganda machine gave us “The Path to 9/11,” which rewrote history to claim that the primary cause of 9/11 was the Clinton administration’s preoccupation with the Lewinsky scandal, while whitewashing the Bush administration’s indifference to repeated warnings.

In 2002, this could have been a crippling blow to the Democrats, but this is no longer 2002 and the Democrats are eager to engage the national security debate. This was particularly evident when Fox’s Chris Wallace awoke a sleeping giant and provoked President Clinton’s counterattack that at least he had tried to stop Osama bin Laden, which was more than the Bush administration had done during its first eight months.

Clinton’s counterattack was given new life by Bob Woodward’s report that Condi Rice failed to act in July 2001 after the CIA “sounded the alarm” of a likely terrorist attack. While Rice reflexively denied ever attending such a meeting, within hours the State Department confirmed that it had taken place.

The Republicans fared no better in their attempt to exploit the Iraq War and “anti-terrorist” legislation, as this was buried in an avalanche that included the National Intelligence Estimate’s conclusion that the Iraq War was making us less safe; the release of Woodward’s “State of Denial” depicting an administration refusing to deal with the reality of the deteriorating situation in Iraq; retired generals calling for the resignation of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld over his mishandling of Iraq, and opposition from prominent Republicans and Colin Powell to any weakening of Geneva Convention protections.

On top of all this, the ultimate passage of the “anti-terrorist” legislation was overshadowed by the Congressman Foley sex scandal and apparent cover-up by House leadership.

With each devastating revelation, however, it is becoming apparent that the reason we are “not safe” starts and ends at the White House. It was the president who launched an unnecessary war without an exit plan which diverted resources away from efforts to capture Osama bin Laden and stabilize Afghanistan. It also was the President who failed to implement the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, ignored the looming threats of North Korea and Iran and did nothing as our dependence on foreign oil continued to increase after 9/11.

Undaunted by facts or reality, President Bush has hit the campaign trail claiming that the Democrats cannot be trusted on national security. After six years of lies and half-truths, however, the question is not who can be trusted on national security, but whether the Bush administration can be trusted at all.

President Bush, however, is not on the ballot this election. Instead, the choice is between the Republican Congress that has rubber-stamped each of these failed policies and turned a blind eye over the disappearance of $9 billion dollars in Iraq reconstruction funds and other administration misdeeds; and the Democrats who want to focus on real security by deploying our troops based on the location of our enemies and not oil fields, allocating homeland security resources based on threat and not Congressional seniority levels and passing the CLEAN Edge Act to reduce foreign oil imports by 40 percent by 2020 through a new Apollo project that focuses on cleaner and renewable fuels.

It is no wonder that even conservatives like Joe Scarborough, who was part of the 1994 Republican landslide, believe it is time to replace the Rubber-Stamp Republicans and give the Democrats a chance.

Thomas Merton once noted that “October is a fine and dangerous season in America.” For the Rubber-Stamp Republicans who now face an angry electorate demanding accountability and the prospect of losing both the House and the Senate, this truly is a dangerous season.

Bennet Kelley is the former National Co-Chair of the Democratic National Committee’s young professional arm, publisher of BushLies.net and a Santa Monica lawyer. He can be reached at bennet@bennetkelley.com.