Well, that didn't take long. In the first news cycle after Steve Harrison's announcement for Congress in the Thirteenth District, Vito Fossella's lackeys are playing the cheese-eating surrender monkey card.

Harrison:

“I am running because I believe we have to build a majority of Democrats in Congress to stop this ill-conceived war,” said Harrison. “I absolutely believe the war in Iraq was wrong, and I would prefer to not even use the term war on terror.”

Fossella flack:

"Surrender Steve may be the only person left in America who doesn't believe that we're fighting a war on terrorism," Kay said after she learned of Harrison's comments.

Got that? But it gets better.

"It's taken Harrison less than four seconds to begin his campaign with negative attacks and smears and nothing positive about the future of our community and nation," she added.

Alright then. Translation from the wingnutese: "You're mean, you French-looking surrender monkey".

I'm impressed. It took them quite a bit longer to pull that card in the last campaign. If that's the opening salvo, then Stay The Course Vito's people are probably not all that sanguine about their candidate's chances in what republicans are privately already calling the Armageddon of 2008. Let me just suggest that pretending Iraq has anything to do with the war on terror isn't the best way to stave off the fruits of that meltdown in the Thirteenth. The people in the district aren't as dumb as Vito needs them to be to buy that line.

On the web: Steve Harrison for Congress