When Credibility Croaks, or, Rather, Gets Croaked

Zogby poll: "Rating down despite foiled terror plot and Lebanon cease fire; Democrats hold generic Congressional lead."

Why? Read my previous post on returning from Europe. Nobody can believe the Bushits anymore when it comes to terror warnings or declarations of making things safer. Terrorism and the "war" thereupon are first and foremost political tools for Team Bush. William Greider, writing for The Nation, has it perfectly articulated.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror--whether real or fantasized--reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

So, once again in the run-up to a national election, we are visited with alarming news. A monstrous plot, red alert, high drama playing on all channels and extreme measures taken to tighten security.

The White House men wear grave faces, but they cannot hide their delight. It's another chance for Bush to protect us from those aliens with funny names, another opportunity to accuse Democrats of aiding and abetting the enemy.

This has worked twice before. It could work again this fall unless gullible Americans snap out of it. Wake up, folks, and recognize how stupid and wimpish you look. I wrote the following two years ago during a similar episode of red alerts: "Bush's ‘war on terrorism' is a political slogan--not a coherent strategy for national defense--and it succeeds brillantly only as politics. For everything else, it is quite illogical."

Then Greider asks the key question.

Where is the famous American skepticism? The loose-jointed ability to laugh at ourselves in anxious moments? Can't people see the campy joke in this docudrama called "Terror in the Sky"?

Now inevitably, some dickhead is going to accuse me of not taking terrorism seriously. Echoing the Donald Rumsfeld mode of Q&A, do I believe terrorism exists? Yes, of course. Do I understand that there are people who think nothing of killing thousands to make a point about their particular superstitious belief in invisible cloud beings and rewards after death? Absolutely. But do I think that the actual, measurable, and preventable acts of terrorism that truly threaten us have been responsibly addressed? In a word, no. Looking at actions versus rhetoric on the issue, I can only conclude that Bush and company care primarily for terrorism as a tool for the acquisition and consolidation of power and any protection of the people a fortunate coincidental occurrence.

After all, how many innocent people have been killed in Iraq? Has that action reduced the threat of terrorism? Are our ports better controlled? Are our borders secure? Where's Osama? Any word on those anthrax attacks four years ago? Are there fewer or more young Muslims ready to embrace the mythical 70+ virgins in martyr's heaven?

Good job, Georgie!