Bush Has Been Exploiting Terrorism For Three Years

Written two or three days ago, before the bin Laden tape appeared, Bill Berkowitz's column at Working For Change is eerily prescient:

"The re-election of President George W. Bush will not depend on the quagmire in Iraq, the state of the economy, Florida re-counts, suppressed votes in the battleground states, the lack of a paper trail from electronic voting machines, or a decision by the United States Supreme Court. The president will win if Team Bush has successfully convinced voters that their guy is more capable of fighting the war against terror and keeping Americans safer than Senator John Kerry.

Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, it was clear that Election 2004 would turn on the threat of terrorism in the homeland. Whether that threat was real or imagined when Karl Rove set out his strategy for Team Bush, terror was at its core..."

It's laughable that the Bush election team are now ready to jump all over any Democrat who dares use the bin Laden tape "for partisan political purposes" - they themselves have been doing just that for over three years!

Although Bush's sprint to the finish line has been marked by all sorts of potholes -- escalating US casualties in Iraq, 380 tons of weapons gone missing after US troops arrived in country, report after report detailing the administration's feckless behavior during the occupation -- Team Bush has never veered from its message: There could be another major terrorist attack on the United States if John Kerry becomes president.

Bush's election campaign, indeed his whole Presidency, has been totally charaterized by this Orwellian fear campaign. Although his successes against terrorists are few and far between, although his mistakes are many and major, statistics indicate - against all logic and facts - that the US public still trust him over Kerry to handle terrorist issues.

Dare we hope that the reappearance of a grinning, re-invigorated bin Laden will give voters pause for thought? The bin Laden bounce is helping Bush today, but there is still enough time for that initial reaction to be turned into contemplation, then backlash. As the Berkowitz article concludes:

If you believe that terrorism is the No. 1 threat to the nation... why ever would you vote for George Bush?