So everyone's talking about how
The Terrorists are going to strike America this summer.
I don't buy it.
This fits a very clear Rovian pattern:
- News that is unfavorable to the Bushies begins to take hold. Something related to Enron, exposure of Bush lies about justifications for the war, or (this time) front page stories about what a miserable failure his speech was, and how Chalabi may have been working for Iran.[1]
- Terror alert is raised, or someone within the administration calls a press conference to talk about "chatter" that "doesn't give a specific time, place, or type of attack," and suggests that Americans "remain vigilant."
- Tons of Americans who are either too stupid, lazy, or busy to actually look beyond the headlines become terrified because "The terrorists are out to get us."
- The media ignores the unfavorable story, and those aforementioned Americans (step 3) tell those of us who are talking about the unfavorable story to stop talking about it, because "the terrorists are going to bomb us!"
- Profit.
I think it's a load of garbage, and it's too bad that more Americans haven't caught on. I mean, the DHS is already saying "The terrorists may try to influence our election, like they did in Madrid." And we all know what the Bushies want us to believe: a vote against Bush is a vote
for terrorists.
See, it's all very calculated, and makes me a little sick.
1 -- This is a good example, I think, because if the Chalabi story is all the media has to report on, they'll be going deep into it: they'll talk about The Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, and how the Bush administration "stovepiped" Chalabi's disinformation straight into the White House. They'll talk about how the usual vetting process for intelligence gathering was ignored, and they'll inevitably start talking about Clarke and O'Neill, who said that Bush had a hard-on for Iraq from day one, and Chalabi told him exactly what he wanted to hear. The way it is now, news orgs are going to run with the "Terrorists are going to strike this summer! (maybe)" story, and the Chalabi story, and the poorly-received speech story will quickly fade away.