The Politics of Fear
Will We Divide Between Fear and Hope?
This coming presidential election is shaping up to be a contest between our fears and our hopes.
There are so many ways to capitalize on fear. Here is yet another:
Charles Krauthammer laments the rise of John McCain, but then lays the blame on George Bush, saying...
Mr. Bush remains popular in his party. Even conservatives are inclined to forgive him his various heresies because they are trumped by his singular achievement: He's kept us safe. He's the original apostate sheriff.
So George Bush has kept us safe, has he?
Has Charles Krauthammer forgotten about 9/11, an event that was not entirely unpredictable since it was the second attempt on the twin towers?
What George Bush did do was use the failures of the past to declare a war on terror and then use that "war" to justify all sorts of over-reaching of his presidential powers in many areas, all in the name of that war.
What is Charles Krauthammer trying to do by telling us that George Bush has kept us safe?
It's the same thing we can expect the Republican campaign to do as it begins to rally its support for John McCain - to tell us we will only be safe if Republicans are in control.
There are lots of ways to respond to this claim. Is it true? Is it probable? What has happened in the past? What are the differences between Bush, McCain, Obama, and Clinton? Do presidents really have much to do with the effectiveness of national security, or are military and other civil servants the major influence? Etc.
What I am more interested in, however, is the use of scare tactics on the American people, since they are the ones who elect the president. And claims such as this one by Charles Krauthammer contribute to that kind of manipulation.
Why make such an outrageous claim?
For one thing, there is still nearly another year to go in President Bush's term. But Krauthammer is betting that nothing will happen before then.
He is not talking about American soldiers on active duty; so the "we" who are safe are not those of us who identify with those who are in that poorly planned military mission in the Middle East.
He is not talking about our lost American prestige around the globe; so he is not talking about the security that comes from the solidarity of support we receive in the family of nations.
Krauthammer just means we have not been attacked on American soil since 9/11 when he says George Bush has kept us safe.
But since, as FBI Director Robert Mueller said, "terrorists operate seamlessly across borders and continents, aided by sophisticated communications technologies...; and they patiently and methodically plan and prepare their attacks," there is a reasonable likelihood that we will be attacked on American soil sooner or later.
And since many indicators suggest that the next president may well be Democratic, Krauthammer is playing the odds that an attack on American soil will occur within nine years from now but after 2008, and therefore that attack can be "blamed" on the next Democratic president!
And of course, if there is no attack in the first term and this Democratic president is re-elected (since exposure favors the incumbent), then the odds are even greater that an attack will occur in the second term. Demonizing the Democrats is thereby a gamble about whether an attack is more likely in 2008 or during the following eight year span.
Assuming the Democrats win the election, Krauthammer and the Republicans will have a large window in which to claim Americans made a big mistake in rejecting the Republican candidate, if a terrorist attack on American soil does occur.
Now let's just say McCain does win in November 2008. And let's say we are attacked on American soil during McCain's term of office. Will anyone start blaming him? Who in their right mind would do that?
So why would anyone in their right mind think that a president from either party would be careless about national defense?
