NYT - The backward logic of the Bushies - Dowd

[rndmprsn]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/31/opinion/31dowd.html?hp

...They follow the Bush strategists' reasoning that since President Bush rates higher than John Kerry on fighting terror, anytime Americans get rattled about Iraq and Al Qaeda, it's a plus for the president. And Republicans can keep claiming that Al Qaeda wants the "weak" Democrat elected, even as some intelligence experts suggest the terrorists prefer that the belligerent Mr. Bush stay in power because he has been a boon to jihadist recruiting, with his disastrous occupation of Iraq and his true believer, us-versus-them, my-Christian-God's-directing-my-foreign-policy vibe.

The Bushies' campaign pitch follows their usual backward logic: Because we have failed to make you safe, you should re-elect us to make you safer. Because we haven't caught Osama in three years, you need us to catch Osama in the next four years. Because we didn't bother to secure explosives in Iraq, you can count on us to make sure those explosives aren't used against you.

You'd think that seeing Osama looking fit as a fiddle and ready for hate would spark anger at the Bush administration's cynical diversion of the war on Al Qaeda to the war on Saddam. It's absurd that we're mired in Iraq - an invasion the demented vice president praised on Friday for its "brilliance" - while the 9/11 mastermind nonchalantly pops up anytime he wants. For some, it seemed cartoonish, with Osama as Road Runner beeping by Wile E. Bush as Dick Cheney and Rummy run the Acme/Halliburton explosives company - now under F.B.I. investigation for its no-bid contracts on anvils, axle grease (guaranteed slippery) and dehydrated boulders (just add water).

[patricia92243]

1. Best article I've seen on recent OBL tape. Wish more Kerry people would

say this. Short, sweet, and to the point!!

[rndmprsn]

2. agreed...i want to hear him nail bush* to 9/11

it would follow the rove logic of hitting your opponent @ the point of greatest strength...

this IMHO would kock down the house of cards built on rove-spin-fantsy...becuase WE AL KNOW 9/11 IS BUSH'S* GREATEST WEAKNESS...PERIOD.

[meganmonkey]

3. Excellent article - thanks for posting.

Too bad it's not in USA Today!

[wishlist]

4. She was on cable TV Fri night too (perhaps MSNBC) bashing Bush

I have not been all that happy with Maureen Dowd's bashing of Kerry's campaign in the past, but it is good to see her coming through delivering scathing remarks about Bush on this all important issue of national security and who will keep us safer pointing out the incredible lameness and hypocrisy of the Bush argument that he is the one to keep us safer.

[pretzel4gore]

5. had Howdy Dowdy and her colleagues

done their job as highly paid pros, and fulfilled their duty in a liberal democratic society, mr bush might have acted more responsibly.....the mediawhores not only betrayed the liberal dems; they betrayed the rightwing conservatives, and george bush jr most of all