Read this paragraph and let the words of the Clinton era pass in your mind:
There's nothing to see here
Let's move on
This is old news
Vast right-wing conspiracy...
In all things Clinton, it is essential to place the questioner outside of the realm of civility and sense, to indicate that whatever the voice dissenting with Clinton-speak is saying, the consensus is that the querist is wrong to dissent
The great thing is, this tactic is now being employed by Bush, but in a slightly different way. Whereas questioning Clinton's dalliances and misdeeds meant to question things that were 'culturally ugly' and thus permissible, to question Bush is to question our very survival.
Thus Bush (rightly) silences his critics by reminding them, "We're not talking thongs and cigars here. This is the future of the friggin' species"
In the realm of science the argument that 'global warming' is the 'future of the species' is put forth, but the evidence (while seemingly seductive) is not obvious.
The political contrast in the terror scenario is, I think, clear.
You can disagree with Bush about the terror war, but the prospect of doing nothing (as Dean and the Dumbos would have) is as clear as 911. I can't necessarily see that tossing a pop bottle out the window causes global warming, but I can see that not chasing Osama might well cause me to become extict.
An unintended consequence of Osama's little war is that he's made a very grey world look suddenly black and white. I wrote on FR on the evening of 911 that among the unintended consequences of Osama's attacks would be the cleaning up of 'a lot of slop'. This is but one consequence: that people will say, in the open, that the Emperor of Junk Science has no clothes. It was almost unthinkable 5 years ago.
I also believe in the end the distinctions drawn by Bush- and the 'Bush Doctrine' - will go a long way toward restoring some modicum of the value of truth in this country.
/rambling discourse