Can Republicans Go To the September 10th Well Again?

Andrew McCarthy and John McCain (R-AZ) seem to think so.

McCarthy wrote an incredibly scathing article calling Barack Obama (D-IL) the September 10th candidate for wanting to treat terrorists as criminals after Obama came out in support of the SCOTUS decision regarding Guantanamo Bay inmates. He talks about how well this approach has worked in the past:

The fact is that we used the criminal justice system as our principal enforcement approach, the approach Obama intends to reinstate, for eight years — from the bombing of the World Trade Center until the shocking destruction of that complex on 9/11. During that timeframe, while the enemy was growing stronger and attacking more audaciously, we managed to prosecute successfully less than three dozen terrorists (29 to be precise). And with a handful of exceptions, they were the lowest ranking of players.

Hmm...according to Terrorist Death Watch, over 20,000 terrorists have been killed in Iraq in the last 2 1/2 years. It doesn't take a math degree to see that 20,000 in 2 1/2 is a lot better than 29 in 8.

McCain's people have picked up this ball and are running with it (quote from McCain's foreign policy adviser Randy Scheunemann):

Once again we have seen that Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of the September 10 mindset,

Jim Woolsey, former CIA director and another McCain surrogate said "This is an extremely dangerous and extremely naive approach toward terrorism."

McCarthy ends with an absolutely crushing line:

Obama would bring us back to September 10th America. And September 10th is sure to be followed by September 11th .

Certainly George W. Bush (R-USA) & Co. used this approach in 2004 with some success, but it failed miserably for Republicans in 2006. While I agree with it to some degree, I think McCain's going to have to come out with something other than this to win.

I'd suggest energy independence.