This one might be legit, and it certainly demands caution: A plot--tipped off to British police in the wake of the 7/7/05 London attacks--to blow up 8 or 10 planes mid-air on the way from London to the States. It's also, as is becoming standard procedure, peculiarly timed between some negative news for the administration and conveniently timed to take attention away from something else that might raise eyebrows.
The negative news? Lieberman's departure. I stated yesterday that his departure owes as much to his lack of action in correcting the Democrats' failure to unite around (and to cohesively voice) an alternative--any alternative--to the current no-holds-barred "stay the course" mentality of the Republican leadership, as it does to the "netroots" and their "hard left" posturing (as the right prefers to spin it). Lieberman's loss comes at the same time as a recent poll showing 60% of Americans disagree with the war on Iraq; that cannot logically be considered a "far left" position. The country isn't THAT far right, that we're unable to logically assess the President's poor performance.
And the potential eyebrow-raiser? It just so happens that this afternoon, it was noted that the 17 or so individual suits regarding the Bush domestic spying scandal were consolidated into one. Anyone think of any reason you'd want to do this--perhaps, to make it easier to "make it go away"? Or, do you think it's more helpful to keep eyes away from the resignation of counter-terrorism officials? Clearly, I'm going to be keeping my eyes more alert next time I fly--but in doing this, and in limiting the items we can bring on board, Al Qaeda can only be laughing at how easy it is to frighten Americans and to make them give up their precious "freedoms" for which they allegedly hate us.
Democrats today stood up and made another good point--this plot illustrates that Iraq has been a monumental distraction from Al Qaeda. In that respect, Americans have not forgotten--in fact, lately we've become even more biased--so much so that 39% of us believe American Muslims should have some sort of "Special ID" and be screened more thoroughly than others. Better screening is fine if it's across the board; if it's done through racial profiling, we're going to continue to alienate Muslims and provide even more reason for more of them to hate America. But instead of giving this strategy more thought, our President prefers to try to take advantage of this news for political gain--by arguing his opponents aren't strong enough on terror. After all, one operative was quoted as saying "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big."
God forbid that we stop and think perhaps we're going about this the wrong way. Better to keep everyone scared and voting Republican. So far that has worked--and what's more, get this: we're so clearly scared shitless that, despite the near-constant barrage of reminders from the Republican Party--30% of us have already forgotten in which year 9/11 took place!
The negative news? Lieberman's departure. I stated yesterday that his departure owes as much to his lack of action in correcting the Democrats' failure to unite around (and to cohesively voice) an alternative--any alternative--to the current no-holds-barred "stay the course" mentality of the Republican leadership, as it does to the "netroots" and their "hard left" posturing (as the right prefers to spin it). Lieberman's loss comes at the same time as a recent poll showing 60% of Americans disagree with the war on Iraq; that cannot logically be considered a "far left" position. The country isn't THAT far right, that we're unable to logically assess the President's poor performance.
And the potential eyebrow-raiser? It just so happens that this afternoon, it was noted that the 17 or so individual suits regarding the Bush domestic spying scandal were consolidated into one. Anyone think of any reason you'd want to do this--perhaps, to make it easier to "make it go away"? Or, do you think it's more helpful to keep eyes away from the resignation of counter-terrorism officials? Clearly, I'm going to be keeping my eyes more alert next time I fly--but in doing this, and in limiting the items we can bring on board, Al Qaeda can only be laughing at how easy it is to frighten Americans and to make them give up their precious "freedoms" for which they allegedly hate us.
Democrats today stood up and made another good point--this plot illustrates that Iraq has been a monumental distraction from Al Qaeda. In that respect, Americans have not forgotten--in fact, lately we've become even more biased--so much so that 39% of us believe American Muslims should have some sort of "Special ID" and be screened more thoroughly than others. Better screening is fine if it's across the board; if it's done through racial profiling, we're going to continue to alienate Muslims and provide even more reason for more of them to hate America. But instead of giving this strategy more thought, our President prefers to try to take advantage of this news for political gain--by arguing his opponents aren't strong enough on terror. After all, one operative was quoted as saying "Weeks before September 11th, this is going to play big."
God forbid that we stop and think perhaps we're going about this the wrong way. Better to keep everyone scared and voting Republican. So far that has worked--and what's more, get this: we're so clearly scared shitless that, despite the near-constant barrage of reminders from the Republican Party--30% of us have already forgotten in which year 9/11 took place!
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