I was disappointed after the Cole bombing.

See… my parents were in town. They noticed this spot where one flag was at half-staff and another wasn’t. “Well… looks like war,” either my mother or my father said.

It didn’t really look like war to me. It looked like war post-poned. Gore and Bush didn’t want to touch this with a ten-foot pole, because they both didn’t want to throw it into the dullard conservative battle of attrition that was, even before the post-election Florida mess, Election 2000. Neither wanted to tip off the balance of their careful bean-counts with this wild card. (Remember, this wasn’t too far after Trent Lott said on CNN concerning Kosovo “Give Peace a Chance.”)

The conversation that followed: who would benefit: Bush or Gore… Gore because you don’t switch horses in midstream; Bush because, y’know… he has the “Grown Ups” of his father’s administration coming on in… and people trust Colin Powell.

But this all somehow rang false…

And the election was held. Bush was propped into the White House. The extended honey-moon followed… He racked up a few legislative and executive accomplishments… a huge tax cut… generic drugs to fight AIDS in Africa, believe it or not… “No Child Left Behind” — a program that garnered Democratic support — including Teddy Kennedy’s, support which disappeared when George W Bush didn’t bother to fund the danged thing… And while we’re at it: Pull out of the Kyoto Treaty (which was what initially spurred the US- World rift, restored post 9/11, ripped apart during the build-up to Iraq)… limit stem cell research — major bones thrown to the right-wing base.

And then came the extended month-long vacation. The best example of the effect I got from this long vacation comes from this Lloyd Dangle Troubletown cartoon, published either the first week or second week of September in the nation’s urban “alternative” newspaper/ slash/ sex-worker pamphlets… A take-off of Calvin and Hobbes, it had the flurry of Bush/Calvin’s wistful days (think “Calvinball”) with Hobbes, with the final panel “Okay, George. Summer’s over. Back to seriousness.”

Parody can sometimes belie brutal truths. It’s all coming back to me now.

This was, as it is now known, the “Summer of Threats.” And, believe it or not, time and time again, somehow the fact this this was the “Summer of Threat” managed to work its way into the evening news casts… beyond the news of Andrea Yeats and the news of that California congressman’s (whose name escapes me) missing intern. I remember it. It’s all coming back to me now. There were 24-hour news cycles in which we were all informed that well-healed sources and experts were concerned that America was strikingly vulnerable to terrorist attacks. Front page news items. Top of the hour news items.

These 24-hour news cycles were quickly interrupted by other 24-hour news cycles in which we went back to the asinine nature of inane coverage of Andrea Yeats and the original Survivor squad.

And in this atmosphere, we jump over to the debate that was occuring on the topic of “National Security”. The Democratic side, for lack of any better spokesperson, was represented by Delaware Senator Joseph Biden. The Republican and Bush administration side was represented by Condelleza Rice.

The Great Policy Debate.

Condi Rice, who at the time was exerting an increasing amount of influence in the administration, believed that we needed to devote our resources toward creating a Star-Wars missile defense. (Didn’t the Chinese downing of our spy-plane tell us anything?)
Joseph Biden thought our resources were better served preparing ourselves from the risks of low-tech terrorism. (Didn’t the Hart-Redman Report, the first major moment when the “Summer of Threats” broke into the 24-hour news cycles though this one during the Spring, tell us anything?)

And we jump over to the current zeitgist-items for dissection. Bush’s comments in Woodward’s standard soft-ball pitching to the powers that be as only Woodward can work it — Bush at War. Page 39.

Not paying attention to that, indeed.

During the “Summer of Threats”, mind you…

Juxtaposed, as it in the current land of various echo chambers, with Condi Rice’s testimony, and answer to the question “What was the title of the memo of August 6, 2001?” Answer: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike the U.S.”

Maybe even with airplanes… which strikes us back to the bizarre comments Condi made that “we’d have no idea that they might strike with airplanes”. (Not reading enough Tom Clancy, I guess…)

And we’re stuck with the creeping question: Didn’t these two watch the news, filtering in only the important parts?

Well… no. Bush, you see, was clearing brush on his ranch. And… hanging out with Barney. Who was having a blast.

And Rice was selling a missile defense shield to protect ourselves from… China, I guess.

Any other items to spit back from out of the memory hole?

Click around the AM Dial. Actually, I’m looking for Jeff Rense… who you can sort of put in the mold of Art Bell. Hit and miss. Frequently amusing, occasionally actually relevant. Had on a good repeat from post 9/11 relating to the start of modern public relations from the WWI era…

But that’s beside the point.

The night before, I couldn’t find him. Something’s wrong with the radio station, which is at times simply pre-empting whatever in favour of whatever else. So, we have this common right-ward dullard going off on a rant about…

“When they bring in the Hitler comparisons, they’re not bringing Bush down to Hitler’s level… they’re bringing Hitler up to the level of George W. Bush.”

Hm. 2 moveon.com entrees deep in the bowels of a reader-submitting contest, an Alexander Cockburn editorial, and a Ted Rall editorial all make up for the use of the word “feminazi” and, for that matter, comparison of Bill Clinton’s modest upper-class tax increase to “Stalinism”.

Ted Kennedy needs to just SHUT UP.

When they try to divide us with their social agenda, blurring the lines of successes… diverting us from what needs to be done in taking down the terrorists… It’s like this: remember when you were in high school and you fought your brother? Then someone comes hitting against your family. At that time, you need to come together, beat up on this other guy, and then beat up on your brother.

Flick around a bit more…

Ponder the personality of Ed Schultz… Randi Rhodes says he’s actually a Republican, who bounced over to Liberal talk radio because he saw an vacuum and an opening…

If it weren’t for the fact that the thought actually came to me independant of her comments (he just sounds so creepily like a Bizarro version of Rush, which brings to mind the idea of contrived thought, and the show is just so deriviate…), I’d assume she’s just slamming the competition.

A couple dozen protesters, wielding signs, stand outside the building. The only sign that made an impression upon my memory said “Ralph Nader… George Bush’s ONLY Chance”. Some of the Nader-detractors had on their pins “John Kerry 2004”. They were mixing it up with some Nader supporters waiting to come into the building, heated arguments about the nature of the two-party system and the Tweedle Dees and the Tweedle Dums.

Looking inside the windows, I saw the set-up: on the edges, the political activists were sitting down, waiting for signatures to gather to them. Evidentally, the head-counters were in full force as well, waiting for a thousand people — a thousand person gathering being one of the measures that could get Nader on the ballot.

Never happened. 700 people came.

To wit, Nader left undaunted. “The ball game, it had to be the ball game.” — referring to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Game.

Remarks that would show the same disconnect from reality that the idea that he might attract a huge Republican vote does…

If true. According to someone posting at the local Anarchist/Left internet hangout, it was a joke.

… Though I’m getting contradictory information here. …

“Our support is heavily working class,” Nader’s Oregon chairman, Greg Kafoury, told the AP, “and for those people this is the biggest night of the year.”

Whichever… I’m left pondering the fate of a man who easily filled up buildings at the drop of a hat in this fare city as short as a year ago… if not here, where? If not then, when?

Alex Jones‘s matrix of websites directed us all to the liberal/left version of the Drudge Report…

I should probably stick the famous Tommy Franks quote on the sidebar, because (a) it is as fascinating as the quotes that are over there (Pope John Paul II’s and Benjamin Franklin’s.) …

“It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important.”

Spain, of course, had the audacity to elect someone of a party still vaguely attached to its old socialist past in the wake of a terrorist strike. Which spurred the denziens from one of the “dark corners of the Internet” (paraphrasing Clinton from April of 1999) debating. And which had right-wing punditry with credentials from Broadcasting Schools blathering:

“If we are attacked before our election like Spain was, I am not so sure that we should go ahead with the election. We had better make plans now because it’s going to happen.” Sean Hannity.

And, of course, what usurpation of democracy would be complete without Rush Limbaugh weighing in? “Do [the terrorists] bide their time and wait, or do they try to replicate their success in Spain here in America before our election?” Limbaugh asked, before revealing how “titans of industry,” and “international business people (who do not outsource, by the way)” were “very, very, very concerned” that one true party forever rule the Fatherland.

“They all were seeking from me reassurance that the White House was safe this year, that John Kerry would not win,” Limbaugh said. “Who do you think the terrorists would rather have in office in this country — socialists like those in Spain as personified by John Kerry and his friends in the Democratic Party, or George W. Bush?”

(Note that Tom Tomorrow has noticed this line of reasoning:)

Flicking on toward the end of the article:

But before the Madrid bombings; before Richard Clarke’s revelations; before more whistleblowers peeked out from under the muck, David Rothkopf made everything oh-so-clear. Writing about the “military officers, policymakers, scientists, researchers and others who have studied [terrorism] for a long time,” he explained how the majority of experts he spoke to not only predicted that the pre-election assaults would “be greater than those of 9/11,” but that any act of terrorism would work in the President’s favor. “It was the sense of the group that such an attack was likely to generate additional support for President Bush,” he wrote.

Citing how “assaults before major votes have [traditionally] benefited candidates who were seen as tougher on terrorists,” Rothkopf catalogued events in Israel, Russia, Turkey and Sri Lanka before explaining the symbiotic relationship between terrorists and hardliners. “So why would [terrorists] want to help [hardliners] win?” he asked. “Perhaps because terrorists see the attacks as a win-win. They can lash out against their perceived enemies and empower the hard-liners, who in turn empower them as terrorists. How? Hard-liners strike back more broadly, making it easier for terrorists as they attempt to justify their causes and their methods.”

And this writer’s “money-shot”…

So, what the heck. If others can do it, I can, too. So I’ll go out on a limb a make a prediction of my own: If the truth continues to seep out about the way the Bush administration has failed us, suspending the election may be the only way Bush can win.
My darkest fear is that G.W.’s handlers believe this, too.

Welcome to “the dark corners of the Internet”, I guess… But notice something. The Alex Jones matrix of websites puts that quote in bold.

I understand why the Buzzflash submitter would come up with that. He’d be prone to a partisan, of the traditional “Democrat” / “Republican” variety, conspiracy theory. But, the Alex Jones weblogger should be able to see beyond this “matrix” and note that the denziens of power work beyond “G.W.’s handlers”.

Why would “they” cancel elections if John Kerry (remember: Skull and Bones) is lined up as George W’s replacement?

Though, he’s just reporting what’s out there. Maybe.

They just changed the color of the “Terror Alert” in Iraq. It was at red. It has now been moved to “White”.

Fallujah on anyone’s mind?

Well. Sigh.

I’m thinking that I know the name of a man with a proven track record of stopping Iraqi insurgencies. Maybe we can put him in charge of this…

You know the name. I hear from CIA sources* that this guy is even “having fun” right now.

Hey! Couldn’t be any worse than the suggestions of Bill O’Reilly… though maybe he has a suggestion on how to logistically pull off individual graves instead of the mass variety.

……………………………
*Information? Disinformation? Dunno.

Apologies to Randi Rhodes, wherein I grabbed the “terror alert moved to White” from.

Addictive is blogging. But, frequently, there seems no point in adding items that virtually every other blog off on a similar wavelength has added.

What more can be added to the story of George Bush I defending his son’s War in Iraq? (Note what I did just now: To TPM’s “Defies parody”, I just linked… the parody.)

What more do you need to know about Dave–Gate? (It’s worth noting that that last Krugman editorial seems to be linked to virtually every liberal blog in this country.)

I suppose this is the reason I have the “Erstwhere” over on the sidebar… but…

The Echo Chamber Effect works its magic…

Okay. I’ll do a blog entry on Lyndon LaRouche’s campaign. Just to be original and varied.

See… I have this idea that LaRouche is incapable of originality, and he pieces together his conspiracy theories from… LATER.