Campaign Fear Tactics Are The Real Terror - Scripps Howard

[WillyT]

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In early summer, Ridge and Attorney General John Ashcroft announced that 90 percent of al Qaeda plans were in place for a major terrorist attack in the United States before the November election.

All of this creates an ongoing public perception of vulnerability.

Blackhawk helicopters hover above Times Square on New Year's Eve and, later, above the Rose Bowl. Even when a high alert is not in place, there seems to be no shortage of reminders that we, presumably, are ever under the scrutinizing eye of al Qaeda operatives just waiting to loose a dirty bomb or launch a nerve-gas attack.

Some believe the most potent weapon in the Bush campaign arsenal isn't an advertising nest egg the size of a Third World nation's gross national product, but the fear card. If the race tightens between now and Nov. 2, they say, another "high" alert might be forthcoming.

I can't get down on Ridge and Ashcroft too much, though, for pulling levers and throwing switches from behind the curtain at Oz's Emerald City. I've always loved a good flimflam man and, among the many I've met, Bush's tweedles dum and dee remind me of a flamboyant and particularly inventive evangelist who cultivated his following by healing the faithful of grave afflictions only he could see.

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Link: http://www.shns.com/shns/g_index2.cfm?action=detail&pk=HARDEN-09-29-04

Thank you Mike!

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