Whee – Me!

I haven’t thought about our country’s system of terrorism alerts in years.

See The Pretty Colors

Of course, I’m not the only one who has ignored the Bush administration’s attempt to keep us aware of all the madmen out there who want to destroy our good way of life and make it impossible for honest, hard-working oil speculators to ply their trade. But there’s little hard data indicating how high or low public awareness is of the color code system. I only know that Fox News, which at first gleefully displayed the current color level in it’s bottom-of-the-screen crawls 24 hours a day, no longer does so. If Fox isn’t publicizing a Bush initiative, it ain’t happening.

The system suddenly came back to mind today when I read Charlie Black’s recent comments about a possible terrorist attack in the US. Black, who’s a senior adviser to Sen. John McCain, told reporters that such an attack would help the Republican candidate in the presidential race, you see, because scared voters in such circumstances would prefer the rough and tough McCain to that marshmallow, Barack Obama.

How do we know Obama is soft? Karl Rove says so. Bushie boy’s former political strategist and saboteur had this to say about the Democratic presidential candidate: “Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.” Sheesh! You want a guy like this protecting us against jihadists?

Even though McCain swore up and down that what Black said is a pack of lies, he has to know that his adviser was speaking the truth. If he weren’t why would Rove and other Republicans be spending so much time painting Obama as Neville Chamberlain, Vidkun Quisling, and Benedict Arnold all rolled into one?

Bush Loves His Country With All His Abdomen

The good citizens of the United States are a pack of scared rabbits despite the fact that this country is the sole remaining superpower on Earth. The rest of the world sees us as a strutting bully. No other nation can send its armed forces halfway around the planet to overthrow another nation’s government simply because, um, because, well, we did it – that’s the point I’m trying to make. On the other hand, we see ourselves as beset on all sides by swarthy lunatics and conniving foreigners. The radical Muslims, the hordes of undocumented Mexicans, the wiley Chinese, and even the Mobbed-up Russians are all poised to pounce on us. Regardless of our might, Americans insist on cowering under the covers because of the bogeymen under the bed.

Scaredy-cats are always on the lookout for a protector, a big daddy-o who’ll keep the night safe. Bush and the boys know this all too well – and so must McCain. Bush’s popularity zoomed after the 9/11 attacks. He spoke tough and rattled his saber, immediately issuing marching orders which included the map of Afghanistan. He did what any other American leader would have done under the circumstances yet too many people became slavish in their gratitude that Bush was president in those dark days rather than Al Gore. Ooh, they moaned, wringing their hands, what would Gore have done? Duh! He would have curled up in a ball and commenced weeping uncontrollably. Once he finally stopped sobbing, he’d have sent Osama bin Laden the keys to the White House via overnight courier.

For some reason, Republicans are viewed as decisive he-men while the Dems are clowns and pushovers. Then again, the Democrats did once nominate Michael Dukakis as their presidential candidate.

We turn to the trusty GOP when we’re most frightened of the brown- and yellow-skinned billions hidden out in the woods. During the election season of 2004, when Bush faced a reasonably stiff challenge from John Kerry, his gang raised the terror alert to orange on September 10th, the perfect time to scare the poo out of the electorate. Bush’s popularity rose accordingly. Just in case you were wondering, that’s the only time the threat level has been raised since the system was instituted. The fact that it occurred during election season is mere coincidence. Oh, and pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

How are we to react if the threat level is raised once again between now and November? I don’t know about you, but I won’t be surprised.