The Days Of Fear And Guilt

The news has been ominous these last several days. The radical right continues to attack journalists as treasonous. At least some of the journalists.

... why are all of the Bush supporters celebrating the unauthorized leak to the Daily News of the FBI's arrests of alleged terrorists who were talking in Internet chat rooms about blowing up the Holland Tunnel ..?...One Bush follower after the next who has been furiously protesting the publication of leaks by the NYT and other newspapers -- almost all of whom has accused the NYT of treason, of providing aid and comfort to their Al Qaeda friends, etc. for reporting leaked classified information -- have written today about this leaked story. But all of them are ecstatic over this story, celebrating it as a great and heroic blow for the Bush administration and as proof that The Terrorists really are the Epic Threat they've been claiming. And almost none of them are protesting the unauthorized leak...Instead, they are celebrating it. The only discernible difference between the leaks of the NYT and this leak is that the NYT leaks (as well as those of USA Today and The Washington Post) resulted in political embarrassment for the President. Those leaks resulted in reports that the President was breaking the law when eavesdropping on American citizens, or creating secret, lawless gulags in Eastern Europe, or compiling massive data bases of all domestic calls placed and received by Americans with no oversight or Congressional authorization. None of those leaked stories depicted the President as a Hero or glorified the administration. They were thus attacked as treasonous by the President's followers.

The constitution and high standards be damned when it exposes the great decider. For exposing decider you are subject to guilt, guilt, guilt. It didn't make the poll numbers go up though. Of course we know the Presnit doesn't care about the polls. That's Karl Roves' job. Manipulate the people to make the cabal look good and ignore the bad by blaming it all on the evil liberals hate of dear leader. Keep talking about liberals and how they are responsible for the sad state of America. What power do the radical republicans have against the liberal juggernaut anyway?

If the guilt doesn't work we still have the fear card. North Korea has missiles! And rockets that , with warheads attached, could blow up...their own country! They could barely get them into the Sea of Japan. The real problem is proliferation but that would again expose the failed policy of the great decider so we will scare people with talk of missiles landing on U.S. soil.

Oh yes and terrorists attacking America! You know, the one where they were talking on an open jihad chatsite on what they would do. Those sneaky guys!

Two U.S. counterterrorism officials, speaking on the condition that their names and agencies not be identified because the FBI is the government's lead agency, discounted the ability of the conspirators to carry out an attack.
One said the alleged plot was "not as far along" as described and was "more aspirational in nature." The other described the threat as "jihadi bravado," adding "somebody talks about tunnels, it lights people up," but that there was little activity to back up the talk.
Speaking to reporters, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said, "It was never a concern that this would actually be executed. We were . . . all over this."

Anybody left that doubts this has a lot to do with the election? Protecting us is great. Reporting it is great. Hyping it beyond reality(see Fox news, Rush Limbaugh et al) is not. Get ready for more fear and guilt as we near the election.