On Friday, we received a news release from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee slamming Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, claiming he didn’t support veterans. The argument was based on Rohrabacher’s opposition to President Obama’s stimulus bill and budget because both included funding for veterans programs.

It’s a pretty weak argument, in my opinion. A sort of classic ad-hoc ergo propter hoc argument. In other words, there’s a disconnect in the causality. The Democrats are saying that because Rohrabacher didn’t support a bill with provisions for veterans, therefore, he doesn’t support the troops. It’s a flawed leap in logic because Rohrabacher didn’t oppose the bill because of the veterans benefits, he objected to it because, he says, he thinks Obama’s cure for the economy amounts to giveaways and bailouts to the corporate and banking interests who likely got us into this mess in the first place. It’s a valid argument, though, it would make much more sense to criticize Rohrabacher on why he appears to be all over this issue now and not during the long era of laissez-faire approach to regulating the free market from President Reagan through President Bush 43. But that’s a more nuanced argument. Attacking Rohrabacher on veterans benefits is red meat in Washington terms. It carries a far more powerful emotional wallop, especially during Memorial Day weekend.

It’s not the first time the DCCC has taken this tack. The committee has  issued news releases critical of Rohrabacher over the past couple of months. One of the more comical ones was an attack on Rohrabacher for appearing at one of the so-called tea parties on the deadline day to pay taxes. Only problem with that is Rohrabacher wasn’t at the event in Santa Ana. The organizers advertised he would be there, but he was out of the country on official business at that time. When I advised the Democrats of that they were surprised and pointed to a Facebook page advertising his appearance. They clearly hadn’t done their homework.

And I don’t think they did this time either. It’s hard to argue Rohrabacher doesn’t support veterans or the troops when his own brother, Kim, who died just more than two years ago, served eight years in the Marines. I’m sure Rohrabacher had his brother more on his mind than usual this weekend. And I’m sure I’m not going out on a limb to say he supports the troops. Nearly all of us do. But of course we’re going to have honest disagreements about the best way to support them. For instance, I argued against waterboarding and torture in an earlier post and criticized Rohrabacher’s stance on those issues. That doesn’t mean I think I own a monopoly on truth on that issue. I could be wrong. And I respect the congressman’s position as I think it’s certainly one he’s given considerable thought to as have I. But that doesn’t mean I think it’s fair game to take cheap shots at him because we disagree. And, unfortunately, I think the DCCC has taken a couple of cheap shots at Rohrabacher lately.

There are certainly substantive issues on which the DCCC and Rohrabacher can disagree and I look forward to a vibrant debate, but I think the Democrats ought to do it in a more fair manner. Cherry-picking something out of a bill as huge as the budget when someone voted against it and then hammering the lawmaker on it is the oldest trick in the book in Washington. I thought we had moved past that. The Democrats’ standard-bearer, Obama, campaigned against it. The party ought to take his lead on this.

But, in fairness to the Democrats, Rohrabacher’s claim that the politics in DC have grown more toxic than when Tom DeLay was Majority Leader and the GOP was in power is a bit  overblown. DeLay, after all, had the Democrats in his state quite literally on the run as he tried to ram through a redistricting that would strengthen the Republican Texas powerbase. Let me put it this way: He certainly earned the nickname “Hammer.” The Democrats actually left the state to stave off a legislative session to do the redistricting. Later, DeLay was indicted in connection with allegations of campaign fundraising and had to step down. This is patty-cake compared to that, but it’s still unfair, the way I see it, and all the more galling after Obama’s eloquent calls for a new Washington politics.

“Playing politics with issues that are by their nature partisan and the responsibility of the federal government have always been a problem, but what we have here is political manipulation on steroids,” Rohrabacher griped to me. “This is taking anything done in the past times 10, and  that’s because they won’t let Republicans in on the structuring of the (budget) bill… I would certainly plead guilty that Republicans played some of these games in the past as the Democrats did before when they were in power, but you reach a certain threshold where it becomes insulting and beyond the pale and that’s what this is.”

I see his point to an extent. Attacking him on support of veterans is an emotional low blow. But politics ain’t bean bag, as Chicago politician Paddy Bauler once infamously said.

As a strategy, I think the Dems are making a mistake as well. Rohrabacher, when he saw the Iraq war failing, was one of the first Republicans to lash out against the war and to take on the Bush Administration at a time when it wasn’t too popular to do so. If the party’s really interested in bipartisanship I’m sure there’s more room to negotiate with Rohrabacher than, say, a Michele Bachmann. I know Rohrabacher’s a classic Reagan conservative, but he’s not inflexible and he’s never struck me as an idealogue.  Better to try to work with him than attack him.

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