The Terror Card

In my view, it borders on the obscene that Charles Black, one of John McCain's (or McSenile to be more accurate) top advisors made a statement last week that sounded almost as if he'd welcome a terror attack on the USA between now and election day. Anything to win, I guess, but do we really want this kind of mindset again in the White House? I most surely do not and, if the GOP is doing such a supposedly wonderful job, why do we even need to still be concerned with potential terror attacks? Could it be because the delusional Chimperator took his eye off the ball - i.e., Al-Queada - and went off on a fool's errand in Iraq? A venture that McSenile supports, by the way. It is also interesting to note that the other pillar of the GOP fear mongering is that of us scary gays. Why is it that Obama and the Democrats offers a message of hope and improvements, while the GOP seems to only be able to summon up a message of fear as a reason to vote for them? Here are some highlights from Frank Rich's column in today's New York Times that properly take Mr. Black and the GOP to task:

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DON’T fault Charles Black, the John McCain adviser, for publicly stating his honest belief that a domestic terrorist attack would be “a big advantage” for their campaign and that Benazir Bhutto’s assassination had “helped” Mr. McCain win the New Hampshire primary. His real sin is that he didn’t come completely clean on his strategic thinking. . . . Would the attack be most useful if it took place in a red state, blue state or swing state? How much would it “help” if the next assassinated foreign leader had a higher name recognition in American households than Benazir Bhutto?

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Unlike Hillary Clinton’s rumination about the Bobby Kennedy assassination or Barack Obama’s soliloquy about voters clinging to guns and faith, Mr. Black’s remarks were not an improvisational mishap. He gave his quotes on the record to Fortune magazine. He did so without thinking twice because he was merely saying what much of Washington believes.

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That equation was the creation of Karl Rove. Among the only durable legacies of the Bush presidency are the twin fears that Mr. Rove relentlessly pushed on his client’s behalf: fear of terrorism and fear of gays. But these pillars are disintegrating too. They’re propped up mainly by political operatives like Mr. Black and their journalistic camp followers — the last Washington insiders who are still in Mr. Rove’s sway and are still refighting the last political war.

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If a terrorist bomb did detonate in an American city before Election Day, would that automatically be to the Republican ticket’s benefit? Not necessarily. Some might instead ask why the Bush White House didn’t replace Michael Chertoff as secretary of homeland security after a House report condemned his bungling of Katrina. The man didn’t know what was happening in the New Orleans Convention Center even when it was broadcast on national television.

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Next, voters might take a hard look at the antiterrorism warriors of the McCain campaign (and of a potential McCain administration). . . . Take — please! — the McCain foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann. He was the executive director of the so-called Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, formed in 2002 (with Mr. McCain on board) to gin up the war that diverted American resources from fighting those who attacked us on 9/11 to invading a nation that did not. Thanks to that strategic blunder, a 2008 Qaeda attack could well originate from Pakistan or Afghanistan, where Osama bin Laden’s progeny, liberated by our liberation of Iraq, have been regrouping ever since.

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Then there is the McCain camp’s star fearmonger, Rudy Giuliani, who has lately taken to railing about Mr. Obama’s supposed failure to learn the lessons of the first twin towers bombing. The lesson America’s Mayor took away from that 1993 attack was to insist that New York City’s emergency command center be located in the World Trade Center. No less an authority than John Lehman, a 9/11 commission member who also serves on the McCain team, has mocked New York’s pre-9/11 emergency plans as “not worthy of the Boy Scouts.”

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But you can’t blame the McCain campaign for clinging to terrorism as a political crutch. The other Rove fear card is even more tattered. In the wake of Larry Craig and Mark Foley, it’s a double-edged sword for the G.O.P. to trot out gay blades cavorting in pride parades in homosexual-panic ads. Some on the right still hold out hope otherwise. After the California Supreme Court’s decision on same-sex marriage, The Weekly Standard suggested that a brewing backlash could put that state’s “electoral votes in play.” But few others believe so, including the state’s Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger who has vowed to enforce the law and opposes a ballot initiative to overturn it. Even Bill O’Reilly recently chastised a family-values advocate for mounting politically ineffectual arguments against same-sex marriage.