Every class has one of those kids who opens his mouth and says what everyone else is thinking. The GOP has Bill Kristol.
“[Obama’s] riding a wave of euphoria. She [Clinton] needs to puncture it. The way you puncture euphoria is reality, or to be more blunt, fear. I recommend to Senator Clinton the politics of fear.”
I sincerely promise to stop pointing out that Republicans and terrorists want exactly the same thing (you, scared shitless) as soon as it stops being so blatantly true.
OriGuy
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Franklin Roosevelt
“You have nothing to fear but what we tell you to fear.”
Bill Kristol
Asti
Tim, you’re absolutely right, and the only votes Hillary will pick up using the politics of fear is that of Republicans (and AUMF would play right into massaging their comfort level to vote for her too). Wouldn’t it be ironic if Repubs were so turned off by the Clintons would be willing to possibly put them both back into the WH when their only other real choices are a Repub they hate, and Obama?
Conservatively Liberal
I have said the very same thing John. Fear is a tool of the terrorists, and our government has twisted reality so that while terrorsts try to win using fear, they justify calling WOLF! WOLF! as necessary to keep us on our toes (and them in power).
Just like the boy in the story, people are not going to believe this crap once it wears thin enough. Of course, the right will just call it complacency because they have stopped all of the terrorist attacks, and now everyone is loving the terrorists because their message of fear is not working any more.
Then if we get hit with another terrorist attack later on, odds are that the whole mess will recycle again. Wash, rinse & repeat. My old high school American history teacher said that the American way of governance is similar to a pendulum. It swings from one extreme to another, never stopping in the middle.
He was an optimist. ;)
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Of course, it’s not true at all. You got at least two important things wrong there.
One, as soon as terrorists start planting fake bombs, jumping out from behind market stalls yelling “Boo!” and merely pretending to hack people’s heads off, then I’ll believe that nonsense about them wanting you scared. Mostly, they want you dead. You being scared is just a happy byproduct that will tide them over until they can kill you. Their mullahs don’t preach “Scare those who oppose Shari’a.”
Two, Democrats also want you to feel fear, just of different things — things like global warming and “domestic” surveillance. Both sides play to the bedwetters, just as politicians always have and always will. Why you guys see fear as a new tactic invented by Rove never ceases to amaze me.
Well, it’s almost the same kind of fear. After all, we’ve all seen terrorists kill thousands of people with our own eyes, and I’ve read about them killing thousands more. Not so much with climate change.
Royston Vasey
Something to ponder….
The Pentagon tells Bush: Climate Change Will Destroy Us
Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas, as Britain is plunged into a ‘Siberian’ climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
So, is the answer to keep spending up large on the military (it’s gonna get real nasty in the future), or do we STOP spending large on the military and start spending on combating climate change (whatever the reason that is causing it, be it man or nature)?
TenguPhule
Call a spade a spade. Illegal spying on American citzens, Fraulin EEEL. You want a police state, I hear Russia will take you in, no questions asked.
Yes, causing global devastation and returning us to the Dark Ages by destroying the very systems we need to survive somehow equal ‘terrorists’ who the Republicans keep creating and backing until they turn against us.
Meanwhile, how many civilians has our noble military killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? Oh that’s right, it doesn’t matter as long as an American pulled the trigger.
What as the difference between Al Queda and the Republican Party again? Only the Holy Books used.
bago
That and the red ties.
OriGuy
And the flag lapel pins. Don’t forget the flag lapel pins.
Asti
EEEL, those are real threats. Roughtly 2,000 people died on 9/11 and no terrorist attack has happened since. You cannot say that al Qaeda is a HUGE threat in the US.
We are not wanting to feel fear, I would like to see you live in a world where global warming has totally unbalanced the scales.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
– Abraham Lincoln, June 16, 1858.
The politics of fear is not going to sell well this year. Too many people have been inoculated against it after two Bush terms and 3 Rove-ian political campaigns. Whoever tries to deploy this tactic risks looking divisive and unpatriotic. The unity sentiment that the MUP is riding has teeth – cross it and you’ll get bitten.
I may be wrong, but it seems like right now in America there is an intense hunger for national unity building up, not necessarily at a rational level, but as an unspoken emotional undertone to that which is being spoken. It wasn’t created by the MUP, instead it is a reaction to the last seven years of drift and bitter division, and a sense that the feeling of common purpose and common national community we briefly had after 911 was left unconsummated and is still in need of being reclaimed and resolved. The MUP is merely providing a focus for this feeling and riding the wave.
I think this is one of those periodic eruptions of the irrational into politics which may have larger scale historical significance – if this feeling keeps building and gathering momentum it may soon translate into something like an Oath in search of a Tennis Court…
[p.s. go read Simon Schama’s book Citizens or some other such reference if you need to know more about the events leading up to the Tennis Court Oath. The wiki article is brief to the point of sucktitude.]
TenguPhule
Anthrax Mail.
I swear, it’s like the American Public is under some kind of Jedi Mind trick to completely forget about the other terrorist attack Bush completely fucked up on.
myiq2xu
It’s easy to think that because G-Dub has been so bad and has played the terror card so frequently, that no one will fall for it this time. But that’s the same thing they say about negative campaigns.
You watch, Johnny Mac’s campaign will push this theme:
“Mistakes were made the last 8 years, but it’s still a dangerous world, and we need a strong leader who will keep America safe. This is no time for an inexperienced newcomer. I’m not George Bush.”
DO NOT ASSUME that the election in November will be a slam-dunk for the Democrats. There are no sure things in politics. Just ask Hillary.
Redhand
Bill Kristol: Gawd Almighty, why does anybody give air time to this hopeless neocon hack/latest NYT columnist (good pick there Pinch)? When you listen to the war/fear mongering nonsense Kristol spouts, it’s enough to freeze your blood. To me he’s a perfect symbol of all that’s wrong with the Republican lunatic right wing. Get the hook!
4tehlulz
That can’t be linked to teh Muzzies, so it doesn’t count.
However, the London, Bali, Madrid bombings…oh wait those were furriners…they don’t count either.
Wingnut logic = if it happened overseas, it didn’t happen, unless Bill Clinton was president.
jake
I recommend to Senator Clinton that listening to Billy Kristol will result in a well deserved spanking at the polls.
It is almost sad, watching these ass clowns scrabble for a bit o’ relevancy. Almost.
Republicans are tools of fear = Republicans are terrorist tools.
John S.
So, you fear the terrorists killing you by planting bombs, ambushing markets and beheading people?
Unless you live in Iraq, you’re a giant pussy.
Lavocat
Neo-cons and “turrists” are narcissistically symbiotic – they need the other if they are to thrive. Just create a petri dish of fear and watch what grows.
Nothing like building a legacy on the graves of 3,000 dead Americans. They must be so proud!
Dennis - SGMM
Considering that firearms and explosives are both laughably easy to attain in this country a person might conclude that the terrorists consider their work already done. They only had to terrorize one person, George W. Bush, and he completed the work of undoing over two hundred years of constitutional government for them.
Punchy
Very soon after posting this, a Code Brown forced EEEL to change clothes and check his supply of ammo, duct tape, and tampons.
Josh
First Brooks, now Kristol…is there some sort of red diaper baby-neocon/Trotskyite affirmative action program at the Times we don’t know about?
Xenos
No Shit. Al Qaeda won already, in that their three main policy goals (US Military withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, removal of Saddam Hussein, US getting bogged down in the Middle East) have all been accomplished.
Now just because al Qaeda won the war does not mean that these were smart policy goals to begin with, and it seems no more likely that al Qaeda will prosper over the long run than the US will find a graceful exit from Iraq. But, on the face of the declared policies, Bin Laden pretty much got everything he wanted (except martyrdom, but hey, no-one is perfect).
croatoan
That can’t be linked to teh Muzzies, so it doesn’t count.
Not according to President Bush:
4tehlulz
That was an unusually measured statement for GDub, IMO.
jrg
The Dems are not arguing for warrantless wiretaps and unlimited executive power to deal with global warming, you twit. When did right-wingers become so comfortable with the concept of a police state, anyway?
ter·ror·ism –noun
1.the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2.the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3.a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.
Run, EEEL, run and hide. The islamofacists will be kicking down your door any minute now.
4tehlulz
>>When did right-wingers become so comfortable with the concept of a police state, anyway?
When weren’t they?
jrg
When fringe, terrorist elements of the right bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building to avenge the government’s handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents under the Clinton administration. But, as with everything else, IOIYAR.
I expect wingnuts everywhere to start arguing against executive overreach on “principle” after Jan 20th, 2009.
KSMiami
Obama should just some out and say something like Americans are better than fear, We are a brave nation that stands up to fear, acknowledges a challenge, and responds with bravery. It is in our national fiber.
That is what the Repukes don’t get. Americans simply are tired of FEAR and deserve better from their leadership. I mean did Winston Churchill tell his countrymen to cower and go shopping? Hell no. Bush took a rare moment of unity and squandered it for Terry Schiavo and look at where that has led us.
The Other Steve
I recommend the Politics of Dancing.
Or anything by Paul van Dyk.
TTT
I would call Richard Reid a successful post-9/11 Al-Qaeda attack. He got his bomb onto that plane, and only didn’t blow it out of the sky because either his gear or his nerve failed. We didn’t pre-empt him or stop him–sure as hell Dubya, Ashcroft, the PATRIOT Act, Kristol Meth and the rest of the no-talent chickenhawk freakshow were utterly useless.
Jake
Now I have that song stuck in my head. Damn you. Damn you to hell!
wasabi gasp
The main concerns of most of the republicans I know revolve around fear. Some try to twist their fear into some sort of strong willed bravado, while others appear overcome by the notion of imminent destruction.
The democrats and indies have mostly had it with this bullshit.
If the discrepancy in turnout between Dems and Cons during the primaries has the significance that I think it does, the perpetual fire drill will have well prepared my republican friends in finding a blanket to hide under.
LarryB
That’s because the anthrax came from white Americans who probably wear flag lapel pins. You know, “patriots”.
Chris Johnson
Being afraid isn’t going to do shit about global warming, Lambchop.
Be brave, take action, fund research, be man enough to run your oil furnace a few degrees cooler in the winter or walk where you might drive. Save up for a hybrid car or something- not just because it’ll save you on gas but because it’s part of the solution. Trade in the SUV on a subcompact and have the balls to go out on the highway and trust your own attention and skill to survive, not mass and inertia…
Since when does living in terror have anything to do with working on global warming? Granted, not being a science-denying idiot helps, but that doesn’t mandate that you have to go around in FEAR.
Or are you coming from a place where unless something terrifies you into action, you simply will not listen?
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Just to sum up the genius commenters here in BizarroWorld:
Real threat = Al Gore’s unproved fantasies
Fake threat = Terrorists, which you admit have already killed thousands more than global warming.
Gotcha. Bizarro love Superman!
So how many pairs of undies must you guys go through watching An Inconvenient Truth? Do you shit yourself at the sight of an incandescent bulb?
Chris Johnson
Bush has killed thousands more than terrorists, can we be afraid of him instead? :)
Nice spoofage, pity it’s so easily mistaken for real wingnut…
Joey Maloney
Y’all have convinced me that the only thing that can save the Republicans’ political fortunes in 2008 is an actual, successful, devastating terrorist attack on U.S. soil that leaves thousands of American citizens dead and maimed.
And now I am terrified.
jrg
Yeah, keep telling yourself that. Your ideology is at odds with reality. We all know that right-wingers hate Al Gore, but what the hell does that have to do with droughts, increasing C02 concentration in the atmosphere, and melting polar ice caps?
People on this board are not arguing that terrorism is not a threat, they are arguing that the biggest threat of terrorism is fear. Why do you have so much trouble grasping that concept?
4tehlulz
If he grasped the concept, he would have to publically admit that he’s being an al Qaeda stooge. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for that if I were you.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
I’m not saying that warming hasn’t occurred, I’m saying that the extrapolation and the predicted catastrophic consequences are fantasy. They are certainly unproved at the very least, you must admit. Just look at your compatriot’s “super secret report” from the Observer a few posts north: Huge rise in sea level by 2005 — millions flooded and upheaved. NUCLEAR WAR!!! (But that’s not fear-mongering, right?) Come on.
I’ve got a few dead friends from WTC1 who would probably say that’s bullshit, if they could. There is a bigger threat than just fear. Most people only have to deal with the threat, not an actual attack — but that’s just a matter of practicality and odds than design. If all Islamic fundamentalists wanted was to scare us, then we could just officially declare ourselves scared, and they’d just stop and go back to making rugs, right? Terribly naive, that.
I don’t know if you are new here or what, but I interpret the constant “sniveling bedwetter” comments (while I realize it’s just a cheap rhetorical tactic — easy to parody, as well) as arguing that terrorism is not a threat.
Of course, the Left is nothing if not cynically dishonest — Islamic terrorism was a huge threat before 9/11 when Bush ignored PDBs with dire warnings, it was a massive threat — ready to repeat itself — after 9/11 when Bush didn’t set up a Commission, it was going to kill us all if Bush didn’t hurry and adopt the official 9/11 recommendations, we were all certainly going to die if Bush’s Dubai port deal went through, and Bush’s inability to get bin Laden means he’s still out there and the Taliban and Al Qaeda are as strong as ever! But when Bush fights terrorism… it’s just bedwetters and scaredy-cats who think there’s a threat. Hmmmm. It’s almost as though the Lefties are always against Bush, no matter how he treats terrorism! Certainly, their positions are not all a matter of partisan politics! Ya think?
Martin
Are you really that stupid? Do you know what ‘terror’ means? Do you know anything of the history of terrorism? Mostly they want us to undermine our own future by making bad decisions. If killing people periodically furthers that, then sure, they’ll do that. If they can do it without that, why make the extra effort?
It’s funny that Republicans keep falling for this crap. I thought Reagan won the cold war by bullshitting the Ruskies into destroying their domestic economy to fight an enemy that didn’t really exist. This is different how? A bunch of guys in caves can figure this out and 40% of America, including some of our ‘best thinkers’ keep buying into it?
High level terrorists *never*, *ever* see killing as the objective. Killing is merely a catalyst to get their real objective done – policy change. If killing was the objective, they would kill people that matter. Instead, they kill people that are most representative of the group that they want to undermine. Killing the military is useless – all nations expect them to die now and then. Killing officials is semi-useless for similar reasons. We would assume that the killing was tied to a policy the official was advancing and we would come to accept the killing as just extreme opposition to a policy, and deem it an outlier event. If you kill completely random people totally detached from policy, suddenly anyone is at risk and they rise up and demand action. If that action ultimately undermines the policy, you win.
Go look at Arafat’s history. Killing wasn’t the goal – political change was and to some degree he was successful. He was just willing to kill people to make that change happen. That’s all Bin Laden is – a more ambitious version of Arafat.
Martin
No, it was a *known* threat before 9/11 and one that should have been given appropriate attention. It wasn’t always given appropriate attention. Hussein was a *known* threat as well and also wasn’t given appropriate attention – he was given far too much attention.
Climate change has been a known threat for a while, but one of unknown consequence since we didn’t know the scope of it, but that is changing. And as to the “predicted catastrophic consequences are fantasy” charge, they are steadily coming true. Towns in Alaska are getting flooded as we speak and needing to be moved – and that problem will spread south as this continues. The two differences between 4,000 deaths on 9/11 and 4,000 deaths due to climate change is that the latter don’t make for spectacular news report and that it is far more predictable in terms of the consequences, unfortunate to say, which means we can act on it far more effectively if we stop denying that it’s taking place.
The left never suggested that everyone was going to die due to Dubai. It was pointed out if we are to be prudent and proactive about national defense, turning over our ports of call to *any* foreign agent is, well, fucking retarded. And it underscores the point quite nicely. Rather than actually deal with national security threats in an even-handed effective nature, the GOP would prefer to be hysterical about the things that don’t actually matter so that you won’t notice them fucking up the things that actually do. So if the left is hysterical about anything, it’s the growing evidence that one of the greater threats to national security seems to be the current party of power and people need to wake up the growing pile of evidence surrounding us.
jrg
Silly me. I thought we were talking about Al Gore, the Democratic political establishment, and the scientific consensus on global warming, not random posters on the internet.
Republican fear-mongering over 9/11 pushed us into Iraq, where we’ve lost more Americans than we did on 9/11.
Maybe you missed the memo, but NYC is not exactly a GOP stronghold. Or are you speaking exclusively for dead New Yorkers?
People are calling you a coward because you believe that sacrificing the founding principles of this country is an acceptable response to terrorism. The 9/11 commission made no such recommendation.
The Other Steve
EEEL – I don’t know much about what might happen from global warming.
But you are aware that many great upheavels in the world’s political history have been the result of climate failures?
French Revolution comes to mind as one good example.
Several years of crop failures is a lot more powerful than 4 atom bombs. So it seems ignorant to poo-poo potentional climate problems as being unimportant. There’s certainly real question as to what extent these problems may be, or if they may not even be somewhat beneficial to some groups. But that’s quite a bit different.
Ellison, Ellensburg, Ellers, and Lambchop
Fine. Don’t call them “terrorists” if you fell the need to be Mr. Semantics. Call them Islamofascists or Islamic Fundamentalist Extremists or Seekers of the New Caliphate, or whatever term makes you comfortable. Whatever you want to call them, a large chunk of the group I’m talking about doesn’t want you just scared. They want you to convert or die. It doesn’t mean you should soil your knickers in fear, but don’t be an ostrich, either.
Terrorists don’t really exist. Check. Good to have you on record. Please have the candidate of your choice say the same, as often as humanly possible. Are you listening to this guy, jrg?
Like any organization, Islamists use different operations for different objectives. Sure, there’s the Iraqi-market civilian attack, purportedly designed to force political strife. But Al Qaeda have also killed political leaders for as long as they’ve been in existence. They also murder religious opposition, as we’ve seen in Thailand, India, and Anbar in Iraq.
So you see the religious/Caliphate aspect as what, a bluff? I think it would be difficult to overlook the contrary evidence.
TenguPhule
What people want and what they can realistically achieve are two very different things. I’m not losing sleep over a group that EEEL seems to think is the second coming of COBRA. Al Queda has only mushroomed as a threat because Bush keeps giving them whatever the fuck they want.
Stop treating them as warriers and start treating them as criminals and a lot of the problem would be solved right there.
Islamic COBRA exists only in your head, Fraulin EEEL.
Terrorism exists, but panicking and treating it as the ultimate doomsday attack by super mutant commie zombie invading hordes only makes you look very stupid.
So they’re just like the old school CIA, only cheaper. Your point being? Americans have never needed foreign assassins for domestic leaders, we do just fine on our own. When do you start calling for the mandatory gun control and government cameras in your home in the name of the bedwetting faction?
It is the Al Queda version of ‘100 year Republican Dominance of America, die Democrats!’. Isn’t going to happen and we’re going to stomp you into extinction for even trying.
TenguPhule
EEEL, your dishonesty is truly pathetic.
Yes, Bush’s stupidity has ignored what was and still is a threat and let it get worse.
At no point has this threat ever reached the ‘OMG, they’re gonna come over to invade and kill and convert us all!’
Only Rightwinger Fucknuts spout that bullshit.
Yes, terrorists can cause damage, kill and make life hell for people in many places. What they can’t do is run a fucking world empire that you seem to piss your pants in fear of.
Terrorism by its very nature is the weak side’s strategy against the strong. Stop helping the enemy and control your bladder.
TenguPhule
Let’s see, the only ones hyping fear are…the Republicans.
AL Queda doesn’t need to bother hyping threats, their domestic partners have the matter well in hand.