Gerard Alexander's op-ed from a few days ago, "Why are Liberals so Condescending?", has provided a handy template with which to expose Conservative dishonesty, fraud, deceit, hypocrisy, obfuscation and continued re-writing of history.
In this issue we examine the question, "Why are Conservatives so petrified?" Or, if we want to be even more condescending, "Why are Conservatives such scaredy-cats?"
It seems Conservatives are much more frightened of Al Qaeda than are their Democratic counterparts.
They are, in fact, so frightened that they object to trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a criminal court, as they did with 300 other terror suspects during the Bush Administration.
They are so frightened that they advocated discarding our nation's laws and constitution in order to send the Christmas Underpants Bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, directly to Guantanamo, rather than turn him over to the FBI as a criminal suspect.
They are so frightened that when President Obama proposed moving the inmates at Guantanamo to an American supermax prison, they went into literal paroxysms of trembling and fear, even though no prisoner has ever escaped from the supermax facility in Colorado.
In other words, while the Obama Administration quietly and determinedly goes about the business of fighting the war in Afghanistan - against Al Qaeda and the Taliban - the Conservatives continue to scamper about like frightened little hens screaming, "The sky is falling, the sky is falling!"
Why are these people so afraid?
Yesterday Liz Cheney was on Fox news:
Liz Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's daughter and a former Bush administration official, on Monday accused Vice President Biden of downplaying the threat from Al Qaeda and suggested the Obama administration isn't doing everything in its power to stop terror....
"There's simply no way you can say that he president is using every tool at his disposal to fight and win this war without being able to get the intelligence you need actually to defeat Al Qaeda," she said.
Biden has a "famously tenuous relationship to reality, frankly," she added.
I would wager that years from now entire books will be devoted to the question, "Why did these Cheney people feel the strange compulsion to lie to the American public at least once a week?"
Does Liz Cheney really need to be reminded that President Obama expanded the war in Afghanistan - a move that is very unpopular with his own political base - in order to pursue Al Qaeda and the Taliban? Does she really need to be reminded that the only reason the U.S. is still even fighting the war in Afghanistan is because the Bush/Cheney team decided to fight a different and unnecessary war in Iraq?
Does Liz Cheney really need to be reminded that the United States' own intelligence agencies say that the war in Iraq created more potential terrorists than it could hope to destroy? Does she need to be reminded that her father repeatedly lied to the American public to lead us into the very war that has created this new generation of new terrorists?
Does Liz Cheney really need to be reminded that the FBI says they are getting valuable intelligencefrom Abdulmutallab? And that CIA and the Pentagon signed off on handling the suspect according to our nation's laws?
Well, probably not.
Because if there is anything Liz Cheney and rest of the right fears more than terrorists, it is facts. In particular, those facts that expose the incompetence and stupidity of the Bush administration, and the continued dishonesty and deception of those who fling their "soft on terrorism" nonsense at Obama in order to score political points.
She knows the facts perfectly well. But, as in most areas of public and foreign policy, if the Right permits the facts to become widely known and understood, if they permit facts to be the basis upon which voters make their decisions, they might as well fold up their tent and go home.
The Republican Party knows it must do everything it can to obscure the facts, to obfuscate, confuse, deflect blame - in other words, whatever it takes to ensure the public has access to as little concrete knowledge as possible.
In addition, the Republican Party knows from vast experience that a generous helping of fear extends the life of each lie and helps embed them more deeply into the public consciousness. So they shrewdly add healthy doses of fear to every lie and distortion they spread. Fear of terrorists, fear of "socialists," fear of a "government take-over" of health care, fear of immigrants, fear of "change," and on and on.
Conservatives and Republicans have recognized that their most most effective political weapon is a potent combination of ignorance and fear. They have wielded that weapon relentlessly and without shame ever since George W. Bush took office.
So, in reality, we must concede that Conservatives aren't actually themselves scaredy-cats. They just want you to be one. And they want you to be just plain stupid, as well.
Columnist Dick Polman has a terrific summation of the Republican "mindset" on his blog, American Debate:
The general GOP argument, apparently, is that our collective cognitive memories should be cleansed of anything that happened in real life prior to Inauguration Day 2009. If such a mind-purge were possible, we would not be compelled to remember that the Bush administration, rather than treating terrorist behavior as "acts of war," actually processed failed shoe-bomber Richard Reid through the criminal courts, and processed 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui through the criminal courts. And that was just for starters, as Joe Biden accurately pointed out yesterday on NBC:
"The Christmas Day bomber was treated the exact way that...the shoe bomber was treated, absolutely the same way. Under the Bush administration, there were three trials in military courts. Two of those people are now walking the streets; they are free. There were 300 (criminal) trials of so-called terrorists and those who had engaged in terror against the United States of America who are in federal prison and have not seen the light of day, prosecuted under the last administration."
Facts are stubborn - or stupid - things, depending on your point of view.
No matter. As long as the Republicans can keep the public - and enough members of the Democratic caucus - petrified and confused, they have a chance of getting back into power.
Which is all they really want to begin with.