Milking the tragedy will backfire
posted by Rick at 10:40 PM

I turned on CSPAN to see the first night of the Greedy Oil Party convention, and what was the first thing I saw? Bowed heads in darkness, and the words "September 11, 2001" splayed across the screen. Then a hymn for the departed of that awful day. Then Rudy Giuliani came out and said "September 11 September 11 Saddam Hussein September 11 George W. Bush thank God horror shock devastation George W. Bush." And of course, the crowd roared.

The Repugnant Party is playing the September 11 card for all they think it's worth. They are doing it because September 11, 2001, was the best day of George W. Bush's political career (with the possible exception of the day the five Republican appointees to the Supreme Court handed him the White House). They are hoping to reawaken the bump Bush got out of that attack. They want to bring back the day Bush hit the trifecta. But that's a desperate ploy. It's almost certain to backfire on them--because today America knows how badly Bush botched both the prevention of and the response to the attacks. America knows how, having heard of the attacks, he sat there stunned for seven interminable minutes in that Florida classroom "collecting my thoughts," then flew away and hid until he was assured that his own skin would be safe if he got back to work in Washington. America knows the White House pressured the EPA to lie to the people of New York about the safety of the air in lower Manhattan. America knows that Bush exploited the tragedy of 9/11 as an excuse to attack Iraq although there was and is not a shred of evidence linking that country to the attacks.

They're still trying to tie Iraq to the September 11 attacks, although they know full well that there is no such tie. They're trying desperately to convince us that they are the party that can win the war on terror, although Bush himself said today that the war on terror cannot be won. And one almost has to suspect that they are trying to convince themselves that their message of fear and loathing can be spun into a supposed message of hope, that their systematic attacks on American freedom can be justified as a defense of American freedom, and that they can win an election with a mishmash of losing ideas.