Thursday, September 09, 2004

Terror As A Political Tool

We've talked before about Bushco using the terror alert system - the LifeSaver thing - as a political tool. Whenever some really damaging political news comes down the pike, Tom Ridge would be holding a press conference talking about exploding beer coolers and the like, or maybe Ashcroft would be talking about the lastest Muslim he arrested on trumped-up charges.

Well, Josh Marshall found a nifty little 'coincidence' the other day. I've copied the entire post:

AP: 'U.S. death toll in Iraq passes 1,000 mark' ... 4:27 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004

AP: 'Ridge: Terrorists hope to disrupt election' ... 4:40 PM, Sept. 7th, 2004

So, if you do the math, you'll see the bad political story for Bush, followed by the terror alert - just 13 minutes later. Why would the Bushies do this when they know we're watching? Dunno. I guess the figure that the press will not bother to report the 'coincidence', and with that, they're probably right.

The U.S. GI death toll in Iraq had just hit 1,000 - forcing some Americans to take a look at what the hell we're doing over there in the first place. Bush was going to be forced to make a statement on the 1k milestone, but any deflection of the story is a good deflection.

How to deflect? Well, there are *lots* of ways, but our homegrown terror alert system - the one that tells us Americans when to be terrified - is the tool most enjoyed by the Bushies. Ridge loves the spotlight, and the media continues to eat it up.

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