That apparently will be the campaign slogan (stolen from little green footballs?) of a new round of political ads being developed by a conservative/neocon adjunct of the Bush administration, The Center for Security Policy:

Diary cont., with links to this infamous ad and what we should do to respond to it, below the fold ...

The conservative Center for Security Policy will begin airing a new television commercial criticizing those who might oppose [Bush's proposed legislation on show trials for terror detainees].

   Some in Congress think "that if we retreat our terrorist enemies will leave us alone,"says the ad that will run in Ohio, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Vermont and New York. "They say we should close Guantanamo, where captured foes are kept from waging war against us. ... They seem to think we'll be safer if we cut and run."

   With menacing music in the background, the commercial ends with an admonition: "Vote as if your life depended on it. Because it does."

The Center for Security Policy website, by the way, has a link where you can watch the ad in all its nefarious glory.  It begins with a view of the Two Towers before their collapse on 9/11, still burning after the planes had hit, with columns of smoke rising into the air.  Believe me, its worse than I can begin to describe.

The sponsor of the ad, this so-called "Center for Security Policy," is a right wing organization that counts among its current and former members such luminaries as Dick Cheney, Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, James Woolsey and Doug Feith, neocons all.  Donald Rumsfeld is a past recipient of the group's "Keeper of the Flame" Award.  In other words, its a group so entangled with the Bush administration that its difficult to determine where one begins and the other ends.  In short, a perfect vehicle for Karl Rove to use to spread his lies message of fear.

Well, can any of us say we are surprised by this?  Because we do need to vote as if our lives depend upon it.  Just not the way the Center for Security Policy thinks we should, however.  Because a vote for Republicans this Fall is a vote that will result in the deaths of more people, and may even open the door to the use of nuclear weapons against targets in Iran.  A vote for Democratic majorities in the House and Senate may not stave off more illegal and aggressive wars, nor will it eliminate the assault on our civil liberties, nor will it necessarily put an end to the continuing loss of American and Iraqi lives, but its the best hope we have to begin the process of reversing the mess George Bush's failed presidency has created for our country.

So, I have a suggestion for Moveon, or whomever is thinking about running ads in support of the Democrats this election season . . .  

Get a response ad out there ASAP that takes Rove's slogan and turns it on its head. An ad that hits back hard by using the same or similar images.  As screen shot after screen shot shows images of the Two Towers, Osama bin Ladin, wounded soldiers in Iraq, Katrina victims, and nuclear weapons exploding (with appropriate printed excerpts from Hersh's articles for the latter), our narrator's voiceover should say the following:

Narrator:

Some recent political ads have claimed that you must vote as if your life depends upon it.  They couldn't be more right.

Because if you vote Republican, you will be voting for the people

[picture of Bush and Ashcroft]who before 9/11 downgraded terrorism as a priority.

Because if you vote Republican you will voting for the very people who allowed Osama bin Laden

[picture of you know who], the man who attacked us on September 11th, to escape his mountain hideout at Tora Bora in Afghanistan, so that he could continue to make speeches taunting us, and continue to make plans to harm us.

If you vote Republican, you will be endorsing the people who led us

[pictures of Rumsfeld, Cheney, Rice and Bush]to invade Iraq, where thousands of our brave soldiers have died and more continue to die each day, based on lies -- the lie that Saddam was behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and the lie that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which could be used to kill more Americans.  

If you vote Republican, you will be voting for the people

[picture of Bush and Brownie]who brought you  our government's catastrophic response to Katrina when thousands died, and thousands more remain homeless to this day, because of our Government's negligence and failed relief efforts.

And if you vote Republican you will be voting to support the people

[picture of Cheney with his ugliest scowl face] who have drawn up a plan to attack Iran, which may include the first use of nuclear weapons since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago.

So yes.  Vote as if your life depends on it.  Because it does.

You see what I mean?  Sling the shit right back in their faces. When Rove and friends pull out their knives, we pull out our guns.  That's the only way to deal with a bully.  Fighting back.  Hitting them harder than they hit you.

We already know ignoring these slurs and slanders, and trying to be above the fray, doesn't work.  Just ask John Kerry.

Front paged at Booman Tribune