Scaring Up Votes (Dowd alert)

The New York Times ^ | 11/23/03 | Maureen Dowd

[Pokey78]

WASHINGTON

First came the pre-emptive military policy. Now comes the pre-emptive campaign strategy.

Before the president even knows his opponent, his first political ad is blanketing Iowa today.

"It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known," Mr. Bush says, in a State of the Union clip.

Well, that's a comforting message from our commander in chief. Do we really need his cold, clammy hand on our spine at a time when we're already rattled by fresh terror threats at home and abroad? When we're chilled by the metastasizing Al Qaeda, the resurgent Taliban and Baathist thugs armed with deadly booby traps; the countless, nameless terror groups emerging in Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere; the vicious attacks on Americans, Brits, aid workers and their supporters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey? The latest illustration of the low-tech ingenuity of Iraqi foes impervious to our latest cascade of high-tech missiles: a hapless, singed donkey that carted rockets to a Baghdad hotel.

Yet the Bush crowd is seizing the moment to scare us even more.

Flashing the words "terrorists" and "self-defense" in crimson, the Republican National Committee spot urges Americans "to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self-defense" — a policy Colin Powell claimed was overblown by the press.

"Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?" Mr. Bush says.

With this ad, Republicans have announced their intention: to scare us stupid, hoping we won't remember that this was the same State of the Union in which Mr. Bush made a misleading statement about the Iraq-Niger uranium connection, or remark that the imperial idyll in Iraq has created more terrorists.

Richard Clarke, the former U.S. counterterrorism chief, told Ted Koppel that Mr. Bush's habit of putting X's through the pictures of arrested or killed Qaeda managers was very reminiscent of a scene in the movie "The Battle of Algiers," in which the French authorities did the same to the Algerian terrorists: "Unfortunately, after all the known Algerian terrorists were arrested or killed, the French lost. And that could be the thing that's happening here, that even though we're getting all the known Al Qaeda leaders, we're breeding new ones. Ones we don't know about and will be harder to find."

This view of Al Qaeda was echoed by a European counterterrorism official in The Times: "There are fewer leaders but more followers."

The president is trying to make the campaign about guts: he has the guts to persevere in the war on terror.

But the real issue is trust: should we trust leaders who cynically manipulated intelligence, diverted 9/11 anger and lost focus on Osama so they could pursue an old cause near to neocon hearts: sacking Saddam?

The Bush war left our chief villains operating, revved up the terrorist threat, ravaged our international alliances and sparked the resentment of a world that ached for us after 9/11.

Now Mr. Bush says that poor Turkey, a critical ally in the Muslim world, is the newest front in the war on terror. "Iraq is a front," he said. "Turkey is a front. Anywhere the terrorists think they can strike is a front." Here a front, there a front, everywhere a terror front.

In his Hobbesian gloom — "Fear and I were born twins," Hobbes said — Dick Cheney thought an Iraq whupping would make surly young anti-American Arab men scuttle away. Instead, it stoked their ire.

James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode wrote in The Financial Times last week that the Bush crew has snuffed the optimism of F.D.R., Ronald Reagan and Bush père: "Fear has been used as a basis for curtailing freedom of expression and for questioning legal rights long taken for granted. It has crept into political discourse and been used to discredit patriotic public servants. Ronald Reagan's favorite image, borrowed from an earlier visionary, of America as `a shining city on a hill' has been unnecessarily dimmed by another image: a nation motivated by fear and ready to lash out at any country it defines as the source of a gathering threat."

Instead of a shining city, we have a dark bunker.

But the only thing we really have to fear is fearmongering itself.

[Pokey78]

---

From Oxblog:

IMMUTABLE LAWS OF DOWD

1. Ashcroft never deserves credit.

2. Offering constructive solutions to problems, instead of whining endlessly about them, is a sign of weakness.

3. The People Magazine principle: all political phenomena can be explained with reference solely to caricatures of the personalities involved ("Dubya" is stupid; "Poppy" is an aristocrat; Cheney is macho-man; etc.). Any reference to the common good or even to old-fashioned politicking is, like, so passe.

4. It is much better to be cute than coherent.

5. Maureen knows best. Her long years as a columnist (doing basically what your great-aunt Tillie does in the nursing home bull sessions, but getting paid for it) have given her deep insight into foreign relations, politics, welfare, the Constitution, and all other topics. To disagree with Maureen in any way is not only a sign of being wrong, it's a hallmark of pure evil...or at least membership in the NRA, which is pretty much the same thing.

6. It is usually possible and always desirable to name-drop and name-call in the same sentence.

7. The particulars of my consumer-driven, shamefully self-involved life reveal universal truths.

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Explanation of the Dowd/Douglas connection: by Miss Marple- 2/11/03

Ms. Dowd was escorted around New York and DC for many months by one Michael Douglas of Hollywood fame and fortune. She got to go to all the best parties, was photographed for the tabloids, and was picking out a gown to wear at the Oscars. Of course, Michael had become interested in her during Clinton's impeachment, when she had written some very anti-Clinton columns. After a few weeks of the Michael treatment, she began to write anti-Starr, ant-Newt columns, ignoring Clinton.

Then Clinton was acquitted by the Senate. In an amazing coincidence, Michael Douglas dropped Ms. Dowd like a hot potato, and instead picked up a hot tomato, Catherin Zeta-Jones, who subsequently bore him a son and they were married.

Ms. Dowd cannot get over her tragic loss. Her columns are increasingly anti-Bush, in the hope of impressing her lost love, Michael.

In addition, we think she has a secret crush on the President and is trying to get him to pay attention to her. Ha!

[Celtjew Libertarian]

But the only thing we really have to fear is fearmongering itself.

Fearmonger unfear yourself.

[liberty or death]

A side by side of Dowd/Jones on these posts would help her understand the futility of her Quest.

[tet68]

Maureen is still doing the time warp.
She thinks it's still 9-10.

So, Mo, Robert Fisk proposed yet?
Be sure to get a ring, though he might still sell
you in the Bazaar when he finds out what a shrew you are.

[JLAGRAYFOX]

I would not fret one iota over Maureen Dowd and her rantings. She is read by about all of three people. Added to that she lives in her own silly, defeatist, left-wing world and hates with a passion driven from within, with no regard for the most obvious facts! Like it or not the Democrat Party is an active party to making nice with terrorists. The American people better wise up and realize that the Democrat party is totally weak on terrorism and national defense. Actually, in IMHO, they are traitors and guilty of treason to the USA. FDR & HST would never have stood for the BS they are pulling while this country is at war! The RNC was absolutely justified in going after these traitors. Are we attacking the patriotism of Democrats? You bet we are. And...we will not stop. This current Democrat Party needs to be destroyed at the ballot box. Wake up, folks!

[zarf]

Da bitch still don't think 9/11 was a big deal. The liberal condescending sneer of Maureen Dowd reveals her own ignorance.

[tet68]

Mo would rather be stroked by Bill Clinton than
hear the truth from a real man.

And that could be the thing that's happening here, that even though we're getting all the known Al Qaeda leaders, we're breeding new ones. Ones we don't know about and will be harder to find."

Mo, it's time for ""Collective Punishment 101.""
The Saudis, and all Islam must get the message, another terror strike anywhere in the world and Mecca is glass.
Now police your own damn house. end.

[section9]

The best interpretation of why Maureen writes what she does was uttered in a burst of insight by Don Imus last year. After another Bush bashing column, he said that "she writes for her friends".

It's true. Every Dowd column should be read as if its the gossip sheet written by one of the more talented girls at a school newspaper.

If you understand that, you will understand Dowd.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Free ThinkerNY]

Every time this cretin writes her drivel, she reinforces the idea that Liberals have all the brain power of constipated fleas.

[lavrenti]

She was a cute little redhead, once.

Used to be somewhat smart, too. Kinda fading like her looks.

[lavrenti]

She was a cute little redhead, once.

Used to be somewhat smart, too. Kinda fading like her looks.

[kcordell]

It's ok to scare seniors about their Social Security and Medicare. It's fine to scare parents about School Lunch programs and a clean environment. It's not ok to remind people about terrorists.

[massadvj]

[Democratshavenobrains]

Yeah, the world ached for us sooooo much Maureen. So much so that they started blaming America for its actions before the fires at the WTC even went out.

[NYC GOP Chick]

The president is trying to make the campaign about guts: he has the guts to persevere in the war on terror.

Well, it's about damn time we have a President who has the intestinal fortitude to do it, instead of sticking his head up his ass and trying to con us into believing that lobbing a few cruise missiles at a third-world aspirin factory and an empty gubmint building in the middle of the night actually did anything to make us one iota safer.

My neighborhood bears the scars that are pretty much the bookends of that a-hole's Legacy of Cowardice -- 2/26/93 & 9/11/01.

But the real issue is trust: should we trust leaders who cynically manipulated intelligence, diverted 9/11 anger and lost focus on Osama so they could pursue an old cause near to neocon hearts: sacking Saddam?

Nice to see Old Mo whipped up into such a frothing hissy fit that she's pretty much carrying Saddam Hussein's water. < /snicker>

[Senator Pardek]

All politics aside, this moron gets paid six figures to write this bland and unfunny tripe?

My favorite from her is this.

Imagine Bill Safire wasting newsprint writing about how his buds exchange photos of Britney Spears.

[NYC GOP Chick]

I'm sure Safire and his buds *do* email each other jpegs of Britney.

[Senator Pardek]

Yeah - but he possesses enough class not to write about it.

[NYC GOP Chick]

It's just that old double standard. ;)

But maybe he's been posting in certain circle j#rk threads. < /snicker>

[Senator Pardek]

Spy.