Wolf! Again!

I guess your people know the minds of the American electorate, Bush. And what they seem to know is not exactly encouraging. It must have served some purpose to have you up there again yesterday, putting out those same scare tactics to beef up flagging support for your "war" presidency. Now we hear how you saved Los Angeles from the devastation of a terrorist attack on the highest of our highrises--a mere two years ago! Well, it wasn't exactly breaking news--though it was treated as such by some of the more desperate media--because we had known about it for some time. But it had obviously become a matter of pressing national importance for you to fill in a couple of wonderful details: shoe bombs to breach the cabin door! And Asian rather than Middle Eastern terrorists! Those cunning, ruthless devils! And incidentally, of course, it was a not inconvenient moment to remind us all of 9/11 and the continuing dire threat from which your wise policies are protecting us.

The question in my mind, Bush, is this: how long can you get away with it? How long before it sinks into the minds of the American electorate that we're all being manipulated to serve a purely political agenda? After all, Bush, there was absolutely no discernable reason for you to make this not very startling disclosure, other than politics and the approach of the 2006 mid-term elections. So at what point do these tactics begin to backfire on you? At what point do we all agree that this bullshit should not be allowed to pass? If New Orleans offers an example of the results of your effectiveness in preparing for disaster (see today's New York Times headline story, by the way, sticking another pin in the inflated, excuse-filled story of your ineptitude there) we should all be afraid--and not only of the terrorists. The time may come, believe it or not, Bush, when Americans begin to see that the Democrats could certainly do no worse than yourself on the home security front, and maybe even a whole lot better.