Dana Milbank points out in the Washington Post today that the controversy over Karl Rove’s attack on liberals has overshadowed Rep. Deb Pryce’s nearly identical suggestion that Democrats are helping terrorists by criticizing the government.

In a press release, Pryce said, “[W]hat we’ve seen from Democrat leaders is a growing pattern of jumping at any chance to point the finger at our own troops — bending over backwards to promote the interests of terror-camp detainees while dragging our military’s honored reputation through the mud.” She later added, “It’s a sad day when — as Members of Congress — we have to remind our colleagues that they were sent to Washington to represent the best interest of Americans — not foreign criminals, not would-be terrorists.” And she also said that “we cannot excuse what has become a pattern on the part of Democrat leaders of tearing down the efforts of our troops and providing fodder for our enemies.” In addition, the press release accused Democratic leaders of “a growing pattern of demoralizing U.S. troops to serve the interests of prison-camp detainees.”

When combined with Rove’s comments and Rep. Joe Wilson’s statement that Democratic leaders are “conducting guerrilla warfare on American troops,” there is a clear pattern of Republican demagoguery of the sort we haven’t seen since September 2004, when President Bush and other Republicans suggested that John Kerry and other Democrats were emboldening the enemy and undermining US troops.