GOP: Why Not Just Say 'We're a Bunch of Idiots'?

The Republican Party has just made an attack so stupid it's receiving pushback from conservative bloggers, such as John Sexton of Hot Air.

Nancy Pelosi, who ruffled feathers worldwide by visiting Taiwan, recently misspoke, saying, "China is one of the freest societies in the world..." So the "RNC Research" Twitter account posted it.

Contra RNC Research, it is good for one's credibility and one's cause to acknowledge when an opponent gets something right.

Naturally, the likes of Donald Trump, Jr. showed up to milk this for all they think it's worth. Quoth Trump Jr.:

Pelosi thinks that the Communist Dictatorship in China is "one of the freest societies in the world," which may explain why the Democrats are now emulating the same authoritarian tactics here at home, that the Chinese Communist Party uses against their political opposition!

Sexton does a nice job of elaborating on why the whole attack is poppycock, although doing so borders on gilding the lily: You'd have to be near-insensate to fail to realize that she just visited Taiwan.

I'm no fan of Pelosi, but I'm somewhere between stunned and incredulous about this. I could see this as a mild joke at Pelosi's expense, but this isn't just some wiseacre's personal account.

I'm a bit at a loss as to who the intended audience would be, too.

Pelosi's constituents? People who repeatedly vote for someone this corrupt and unpopular are a lost cause: Our best hope is for them to keep electing her well into a dotage that would perhaps render her relatively harmless.

Independents and persuadable Democrats? Nope. Such people by their nature enmesh data, such as they might hope the research arm of a major political party to provide, within the greater context of what they already know -- like that visit that's been all over the news. Indeed, such an institution should be exceedingly cautious about what it puts out precisely because its credibility is at stake.

Its own party? This isn't even good "red meat." And it isn't as if any reasonable people left there post-Trump would run with it or that the rest need an excuse or any help at all to cook up conspiracy theories and nutty accusations.

On her character and political positions alone -- with the possible exception of the one thing (Taiwan!) that she's on the right side about! -- Pelosi has a big, juicy attack surface.

This is a dumb attack for a dumb reason that looks like a cheap shot at an elderly person -- on someone who should be easy pickings for opposition research. On top of that, the Taiwan trip was arguably a good time to say something good about Pelosi, even if only to couch it in terms of how rare something like that is.

-- CAV