The mixing of anti-terrorism policy with the 2004 presidential campaign is becoming destructive. It is creating a vicious cycle of hype, skepticism and mistrust that puts the country’s security at risk….
A government has no asset more precious than public trust. That’s especially true for a nation threatened by a terrorist adversary, where good intelligence and reliable warnings can save lives. By linking its reelection campaign so closely to the war on terrorism, the Bush administration has eroded its credibility — to the point that some members of the public are beginning to wonder whether terrorism warnings are all just politics.
I am angry…no, I am BEYOND angry…that a sitting President would so thoroughly and cynically politicize perhaps the most horrific day in American history for his own political gain. This craven willingness to exploit a tragedy that touched virtually every American, whether directly or indirectly, has trickled down through all levels of government, to the point where bureaucrats with no security functions are now parrotting the party line.
Four hijacked airliners, 3000 dead Americans, thousands more wrecked lives…and yet now, three years later, 9.11 is nothing more than a means to an end. It has been reduced to just another tool that Republicans can exploit to get their candidates elected. Honestly, is there anything more despicable and cravenly political that a sitting President who is willing to exploit this tragedy to further his own sorry excuse for a Presidency? Shouldn’t Americans everywhere be screaming in anger that George W. Bush is willing to ride back into the office on the lives of so many innocent victims?
Apparently not.
On August 11, John Kerry criticized the Bush Administration for blocking a bipartisan plan to give seniors access to lower-priced prescription drugs from Canada. With almost 80 percent of Medicare recipients supporting Kerry’s position, the Bush campaign was faced with the prospect of defending a politically unpopular position.
That same day, in an interview with the Associated Press, FDA Acting Commissioner Lester Crawford said terrorist “cues from chatter” led him to believe Al Qaeda may try to attack Americans by contaminating imported prescription drugs. Crawford refused to provide any details to substantiate his claims.
Asked about Crawford’s comments, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security was forced to concede, “We have no specific information now about any Al Qaeda threats to our food or drug supply.” The Administration had brazenly used Americans’ justifiable fears of a future terrorist attack to parry a routine criticism of its policies.
And yet a majority of Americans seem more than willing to countenance this trivializing of 9.11. Why? Because as most Republicans will tell you, Bush is a resolute man, and you will always know where he stands. Even, apparently, when his positions are a craven and heartless exploitation of the deaths of 3,000 Americans. Yep, Americans like resolute.
How did Republicans arrive at this place?
What started as an effort to leverage early support for the President on national security issues has expanded into the politicization of our country’s safety and security infrastructure. That process has damaged the credibility of the federal government and made all Americans less secure….
On January 19, 2002—just nineteen weeks after the 9/11 attacks—Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, told a high-level gathering at the Republican National Committee to “go to the country” and tell the American people they can “trust the Republican Party to do a better job of…protecting America.” Soon afterward, Bush authorized the Republican Party to sell photographs of himself aboard Air Force One, looking concerned and talking on a red telephone to the Vice President on 9/11.
As the 2002 midterm elections neared, White House political director Ken Mehlman developed a secret PowerPoint presentation—which was made public after being dropped in a park—urging Republican candidates to highlight fears of future terrorist attacks. In the most outrageous example, Georgia Senate candidate Saxby Chambliss, who had avoided service in Vietnam, ran campaign commercials drawing parallels between triple amputee Vietnam War veteran Max Cleland and Osama bin Laden.
It’s as if Republicans have come to an unspoken agreement that ANYTHING, no matter how craven, inappropriate, or exploitative, is fair game if it can help ensure the bottom line- putting George W. Bush back in the White House and ensuring continued Republican control of Congress.
The method for accomplishing this is deceptively simple, and it can really be boiled down to several easily digestable bullet points:
Claim that Democrats are complacent on security issues. Campaigning in New Jersey in late September, Bush claimed Democrats in the Senate were “not interested in the security of the American people.”
Choose your symbols carefully to ensure that 9.11 is evident but not obvious: the Republicans decided to hold their convention in New York City in late August and early September of 2004—the latest date a convention has ever been held. The move insured that Ground Zero would be their backdrop on the eve of the three-year anniversary of 9/11.
Don’t be afraid to exploit fear, pain, and anger: The Bush team’s first political ads featured grisly images of firefighters carrying flag-draped coffins out of the rubble of the World Trade Center. Of course, this plan backfired, if for no other reason than it was terribly UNsubtle and devoid of nuance and deniability.
Engage in creative mythmaking. F’rinstance, planting the story that a vote for John Kerry is a vote for terrorism is a good start: Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma told a group of Republicans that “if George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election.” He was echoed by the right-wing media. One nationally syndicated columnist wrote, “Which candidate does our enemy want to lose? George W. Bush.” Fox News pundit Monica Crowley similarly observed, “America’s adversaries want to see John Kerry elected.” Later that month, Republican political operatives commissioned an “independent” poll that purported to find that “60 percent of registered voters believed that terrorists would support John Kerry in this year’s presidential elections.”
Stand above the fray while others do your dirty work for you: ….a new barrage of campaign advertisements distorting Kerry’s voting record on defense and intelligence issues. All this despite Bush’s January 2002 promise that he had “no ambition whatsoever to use the war [on ‘terrorism’] as a political issue.”
Occasionally raise the specter of terrorism. After all, a frightened voting populace is much less likely to ask uncomfortable questions, eh?: On May 26 Attorney General John Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference announcing that Al Qaeda was “almost ready to attack the United States” and had the “specific intention to hit the United States hard.” But Ashcroft did not provide any new or specific information….
Whenever you think the Democrats might steal the spotlight, throw the people a “terror” bone: In July, two days after Kerry selected John Edwards as his running mate, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge held a press conference of his own to say that “Al Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States.” Again, he did not elaborate on what was new about his statement and was forced to admit, “We lack precise knowledge about time, place and method of attack.”
Don’t be afraid to pressure foreign governments to do your bidding, especially ones that have their own internal problems and are heavily dependent on American largesse and goodwill: top Pakistani security officials were being pressured by the Bush Administration to announce the capture of high-value terrorist targets during the Democratic National Convention…. But on July 29, just hours before Kerry’s keynote address, Pakistan announced the capture of Al Qaeda suspect Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani. Curiously, he had been apprehended five days earlier. Even more suspect: The announcement was made at midnight Pakistani time, when most Pakistanis were asleep, but at the perfect time to coincide with America’s prime-time television news schedule.
Fear can also be effective used to negate the traditional post-convention “bounce” that most candidates enjoy immediately after accepting their party’s nomination: Ridge announced that he was raising the threat level in New York City, Northern New Jersey and the District of Columbia to “Code Orange.” He claimed the threat level was being raised because of “new and unusually specific information about where Al Qaeda would like to attack.” Undermining his claim that “we don’t do politics in the Department of Homeland Security,” he wove a campaign-style endorsement of the President into his warning: “We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the President’s leadership in the war against terror,” Ridge declared just a few breaths after invoking frightening images of “explosives,” “weapons of mass destruction” and “biological pathogens.”
Of course, it helps if you don’t let things like truth, accuracy, perspective, or reality stand in the way of furthering the cause: Ridge neglected to mention that most of the information was at least three years old, much of it surveillance data that had been collected before 9/11.
Make sure that your friends in the Right Wing Media get on board early and often. They can beat the drums of fear for you, and you can stand on the sidelines and plead ignorance if thing blow up: The conservative Washington Times ran a front-page story quoting Bush officials as saying that in the upcoming election, “the view of Al Qaeda is ‘anybody but Bush.’” Again, they provided no proof to back up the claim.
Using the “good cop/bad cop” approach can also be an effective method to spread fear and ignorance to the masses. As President, you will, of course, want to play “good cop”, since you have the bully pulpit. Conveniently, few people are better-suited to the “bad cop” role than your faithful lap/attack dog of a Vice-President: Speaking to voters in Iowa on September 7, Cheney expressed what is now the very public message of the Bush campaign: “It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again. And we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating.”
Don’t be afraid to play the “vote for us or die” card. Through careful and judicious use of surrogates (Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Richard Mellon Scaife, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum….), you can disavow any knowledge of or control over your eager and willing lieutenants.
Turn Washington, DC into an armed fortress, a walled-off permanent reminder of the threat against us. Of course, the threat may be real (as it was PRIOR to 9.11), but nothing gets an American tourist’s attention better than seeing our nation’s capitol turned into a walled citadel: AT THE RATE federal authorities are walling off U.S. buildings and grounds in the nation’s capital, downtown Washington could become a partitioned government enclave in only a few years. The latest move by Capital Police Chief Terrance W. Gainer and Senate Sergeant-at-Arms William H. Pickle to set up 14 vehicle checkpoints and close a main city thoroughfare — First Street NE between Constitution Avenue and D Street — is a massive step in that direction.
Don’t be afraid to inconvenience people to the nth degree (Any of y’all tried to fly commercial lately? How long until mandatory strip and cavity searches?). Those very inconveniences and the gravity with which they are maintained can and should serve as a graphic reminder that we are AT WAR, and that sacrifices are demanded of all of us. Of course, if properly utilized, these conveniences should serve as a self-evident example of the need to VOTE REPUBLICAN.
For a President who promised never to use 9.11 as a partisan campaign issue, this represents yet another broken promise. And yet a majority of Americans seem reluctant to hold George W. Bush accountable. Why? Becase the leadership of the Bush campaign are Summa Cum Laude graduates of the Niccolo Machiavelli/Josef Goebbels/Lee Atwater/Karl Rove School of Political Public Manipulation. By using time-tested and proven methods advocated by the NMJGLAKRSPPM curriculum, a campaign manager with a single-minded devotion to the pursuit of victory uber Alles and a pronounced lack of a conscience can maneuver and manipulate his candidate to a clear-cut mandate and ultimate victory (and yes, Karl Rove, is clearly that man). After all, isn’t that what this is really all about?
