"What October Surprise"? - Tom Engelhardt on AlterNet

[tomfodw]

http://www.alternet.org/story/19500/

What October Surprise?
By Tom Engelhardt, tomdispatch.com
Posted on August 10, 2004, Printed on August 11, 2004

Among Bush administration opponents – and not just those on the Internet either – there's a deep-seated, Florida-inspired, and not unreasonable fear of an October or even November 2nd "surprise." Over the last year, for instance, there have been spasms of Diebold-mania (in honor of one of the Republican-donor firms making the paper-trail-less, touch-screen-computer voting machines, considered quite capable of producing a Florida II). Or what about those "felon lists," endlessly purged in Baby Bush's state of perfectly un-felonesque African-American Floridians but not of (usually Republican-voting) Hispanics, felonious or otherwise? Michael Moore is heading for the state on Election Day, camera in hand, but who isn't?

:::snip:::

And while the administration undoubtedly isn't holding Osama bin Laden for just the right moment, there are more modest recent examples of its willingness to go that extra mile down some dark alley in its own electoral self-interest. Consider, as a start, an interesting graphic recently posted by Juliusblog (and spotted by an eagle-eyed Tomdispatch reader). It combines the clever, ever-sliding Bush approval chart at Professor Pollkatz's Pool of Polls with the major administration alerts into a pattern that looks suspiciously self-serving indeed.

:::snip:::

In this we certainly have a nasty brew of remarkable incompetence and manipulative acts aimed at helping George Bush get reelected – the MO of this administration for at least the last year or so. Can there be any question that the Bush men would consider almost any scenario that might advance their candidate's second-term fortunes? I think not. But their incompetence shouldn't be overlooked either; nor should we focus too exclusively on such scenarios ourselves. In that focus lies a lurking fatalism which has its own dangers. It leads to an overestimation of the Machiavellian abilities of the somewhat inept Busheviks, treating them as if they were a comic-book cohort of X-men, superhuman in their ability to grab fate decisively by the throat, reorganize reality to suit their needs, and manipulate the American public. In fact, if you think about it a moment, the Bush administration has proven far less competent since it tossed the Iraqi dice than either its top officials or most of its opponents ever conceived possible. And there's a surprise for you!

Whatever surprises this administration is planning for the coming months, it's hard to imagine an administration that's been as regularly caught off-guard by events as this one. Reality has been biting back with surprising ferocity. Among their manipulations that haven't worked out quite as planned you would have to include the front-loading of the economy (those tax rebates now long gone) and the passing of Iraqi "sovereignty" in a two-day early June "surprise" that managed to shove Iraq onto the inside pages of the papers and deep into the nightly news for a month – but in both cases (see below), reality shoved back in surprising ways. Not only is there no guarantee that an administration electoral surprise will work as planned, but it's a reasonable guess that, of the surprises that lie ahead, the majority aren't likely to fall Bush's way. These could be a long three months for Karl Rove & Co.

I'm sure all of you could come up with your own lists of ways this administration has been and may continue to be ambushed, but here's a little starter-list of my own – ten surprises this administration proved remarkably unprepared for.

:::snip:::

10. Things to come category (part 2): What if Al-Qaeda doesn't strike in the U.S. before November 2? I know its rash of me to say, but this might prove the real October surprise: The administration doesn't find Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda doesn't carry out a domestic terror attack before or on election day. September 11th happened, as we now know in copious detail, because just about no one was looking while those al-Qaeda operatives and their "Saudi muscle" entered the U.S. fairly openly, trained for their flights, and bought their box-cutters. But with people even half-looking, half-efficiently, it's a far harder task to get that Saudi muscle in and organize an operation here. While I don't discount the dangers, I still consider such an attack unlikely soon.

So those of your intent on October or November surprises, at least remember that we're not the only ones they're likely to be aimed at. As the Bush administration limps toward November 2, guns drawn, wagons circled, ready for a fight, but unsure over which horizon, from behind which rocky knoll the next surprise may spring, keep in mind that reality's the great white shark and there's blood in the water.

© 2004 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/19500/

[CrispyQ]

1. I love this part & try to keep it in mind when I get depressed . . .

over the whole frickin' mess:

"But their incompetence shouldn't be overlooked either; nor should we focus too exclusively on such scenarios ourselves. In that focus lies a lurking fatalism which has its own dangers. It leads to an overestimation of the Machiavellian abilities of the somewhat inept Busheviks, treating them as if they were a comic-book cohort of X-men, superhuman in their ability to grab fate decisively by the throat, reorganize reality to suit their needs, and manipulate the American public. In fact, if you think about it a moment, the Bush administration has proven far less competent since it tossed the Iraqi dice than either its top officials or most of its opponents ever conceived possible. And there's a surprise for you!"

Great article!