Republicans sent insipid and stupidly hyperbolic mailings to voters in West Virginia and Arkansas warning about liberals who want to legalize gay marriage and ban the Bible, the RNC admitted today:

The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass mailings to residents of two states warning that "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for President Bush.

The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned" and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent to West Virginians.

A liberal religious group, the Interfaith Alliance, circulated a copy of the Arkansas mailing to reporters yesterday to publicize it. "What they are doing is despicable,'' said Don Parker, a spokesman for the alliance. "They are playing on people's fears and emotions." ... In statement, Senator John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, said President Bush "should condemn the practice immediately and tell everyone associated with the campaign to never use tactics like this again."

No one, to my knowledge, has ever raised the question of banning the Bible. In fact, that smear is as grounded in reality as Republicans supposedly secretly planning on bringing back the draft. It's a stupid charge, easily debunked, and insults the intelligence of the voters to whom it was directed. In the Internet age, spewing forth like this only makes the spewer look bad when they're caught, and as Dan Rather found out, they inevitably are. The RNC should apologize.

However, since the Democrats are in the mood for apologies, here are a few that should come first:

* Terry McAuliffe should apologize for calling President Bush "AWOL" and repeatedly asserting that Bush dishonored the country. McAuliffe has never presented a shred of evidence for those charges, and unless he does, he should apologize.

* Madeline Albright and Teresa Heinz Kerry should apologize for insinuating or outright stating that Bush already has Osama bin Laden and are holding him secretly until just before the election.

* Howard Dean should apologize for insinuating that George Bush got tipped off to the 9/11 attacks ahead of time by the Saudi royal family and allowed it to happen anyway.

* Pat Leahy and a raft of other Democrats should apologize for calling Dick Cheney a "war profiteer" because of his sealed, blind trust that contains his deferred compensation from Halliburton. That money exists regardless of Halliburton's work, and the pay is fixed; any profits Halliburton made since the deferral have no impact on its value, and everyone knows it. Cheney lost a lot of money when he cashed out his options in his former company. It's a baseless and cowardly smear.

* The DNC, including its chairman McAuliffe, should apologize for suggesting in the same breath that the Killian memos were authentic when they had no idea if they were, and then stating that Karl Rove planted them if they were fakes.

These people are officials in the Democratic Party, not some special-interest wackos or 527 lunatics. If they want to hear apologies over the Bible-ban smear, they have some catching up to do first.

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» Some conservatives condemn RNC Bible Ban Ad from Eva Young
Captain Ed: No one, to my knowledge, has ever raised the question of banning the Bible. In fact, that smear is as grounded in reality as Republicans supposedly secretly planning on bringing back the draft. It's a stupid charge, easily... [Read More]

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