Frank Rich: E=mc2 that Bomb in American City=G.O.P. Landslide.

[blogslut]

...That the old Rove mojo still commands any respect is rather amazing given how blindsided he was by 2006. Two weeks before that year’s midterms, he condescendingly lectured an NPR interviewer about how he devoured “68 polls a week” — not a mere 67, mind you — and predicted unequivocally that Election Day would yield “a Republican Senate and a Republican House.” These nights you can still find Mr. Rove hawking his numbers as he peddles similar G.O.P. happy talk to credulous bloviators at Fox News.

But let’s put ourselves in Mr. Black’s shoes and try out the Rove playbook at home — though not in front of the children — by thinking the unthinkable. If a terrorist bomb did detonate in an American city before Election Day, would that automatically be to the Republican ticket’s benefit?

Not necessarily. Some might instead ask why the Bush White House didn’t replace Michael Chertoff as secretary of homeland security after a House report condemned his bungling of Katrina. The man didn’t know what was happening in the New Orleans Convention Center even when it was broadcast on national television.

Next, voters might take a hard look at the antiterrorism warriors of the McCain campaign (and of a potential McCain administration). This is the band of advisers and surrogates that surfaced to attack Mr. Obama two weeks ago for being “naïve” and “delusional” and guilty of a “Sept. 10th mind-set” after he had the gall to agree with the Supreme Court decision on Gitmo detainees. The McCain team’s track record is hardly sterling. It might make America more vulnerable to terrorist attack, not less, were it in power...

More yummy Frank Rich goodness at the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/opinion/29rich.html?ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

[MrModerate]

1. Bush The Incompetent; McCain More of the Same n/t

[blogslut]

2. Yep

And that fact is solidified with the memory of hurricane Katrina. Incompetence in war. Incompetence in governing. Incompetence in allowing al Qaeda to re-group in Afghanistan.

[Gabi Hayes]

3. the 64 thousand dollar question is WHEN is it going to happen:

how far away from the election would be exactly the most propitious to stick Grandpa in the office?

the closer to the election, the better for them. sometime within a week is when I think it's going to happen

It makes me sick to my stomach to imagine that they're capable of something like that, but after all that's happened, does ANYbody not think that they certainly ARE capable of anything?

and I mean anything

they have shown absolultely no qualms

none

[blogslut]

4. I don't think you're getting the point of the article

An attack won't help the repubs. An attack will piss America off. It will be one more failure in a long line of failures. This isn't 2004. It's 2008 and things are quite different now. Those little babies in D.C. might still be running around askeered but the voting populace is tired of being played.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. I think I am, exactly. and I'm afraid that, the closer to the election an attack

happens, the MORE likely the sheeple will be to rally around our great leader, and confer his mantle on McCain. the emotional impact will be devastating, and McCain's 'friends,' the manipulated masses, will fall in line

if something happens very soon, and it won't, there might be time for people to process the fact that BOTH 911 AND whatever event may be coming happened on Bush's watch

I agree that logically, the connection is easily made, but the very REASON for propaganda's succesful application relies on conditioning the average news consumer to NEVER, EVER allow himself to think rationally about any issue of importance, to rely completely on the part of the brain that controls emotional/fear-based response

they KNOW this; they've studied it carefully

it's the only thing they're really good at.....everything they do springs from this font

[blogslut]

10. We'll just have to disagree then

n/t

[Gabi Hayes]

13. listen, I'd like to disagree with myself, and I hope I'm wrong, especially

about something happening, but the M$M is in almost total agreement with me. that's the perceived CM, THEY Say, and it's what THEY are trying to foist on the hapless geeks who live in the real world

they're trying to convince you and me that salvation lies on with the strong, which we all know is John McBush

[Gabi Hayes]

16. btw, I really enjoy your blog; this page blew me away

http://www.blogslut.com/oldslut/

"Dick" is a work of genius, in a special way. something about the way they were able to capture all the most important elements of Watergate, and filter them, very incisively, through the eyes of two airheaded (yet truly patriotic, in the best sense) high school tigerbeaters.

it deserves a place with Dr. Strangelove

seriously

and did you do the Ari/Dean transmog? that was very creepy....loved it!

then Alien?

"nice page, baby!"

[blogslut]

18. Why, thank you

A girl can always use a little love. :hi:

Yes, I made the Ari/Dean thing. Funny how John Dean turned out to be Scotty McClellan. I guess my guess was one off.

[Gabi Hayes]

19. can you turn Ari into a gila monster, or something? how about this?

seen this...cracks me up:





http://alienlovespredator.com/?id=251

[blogslut]

20. LOL!

Okay. That Alien loves Predator toon is pretty damned funny. I'll have to hit that site.

As for the morph. I would have to go get the software again. I killed it when I did a HD format a while back. Now I can't remember what the hell it was called. A shame, cause it was freeware.

[Gabi Hayes]

21. one of my favorite sites....some of those strips are killers

whoever writes that stuff really gets it

they'd probably like to hear from you, given your celeb status

can I have an autograph before you get too famous for us?

too bad about the freeware, cause that transition was very very smooth. I was disappointed it wasn't an animated gif, cause I wanted to save it to my file

speaking of which, seen this?



or this? bush-0-nomics:

[blogslut]

23. eeks!

Them's some creepy eggs!

I converted that morph into an swf file cause the gif was huuuuge. I was using my laptop with dialup at the time. As I said, if I find me some decent free morphing software, I'll make a gif out of it again. Big old animated gifs are back in style again. Who knew?

[Gabi Hayes]

24. speaking of which, did you know that in the Philippines they're called

eegs?

eggs, that is

you have that one already?

how bout this? I think I like this the best, so don't show it to anybody

http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/

where's charlie chaplin?

[blogslut]

25. wow

that's pretty elaborate. ytmd scares me. :scared:

[Gabi Hayes]

26. pretty cool, yes?

I used to be able to do very simple gifs....did one of the four pictures of Bush falling from a segway, but that was a few years ago.

how much how do you think they did that thing/how long would it take?

and do you recognize the music?

[blogslut]

27. I have no idea how long

To be frank, that's beyond my skill level.

Of course I recognize the music. And now I want an automated breakfast machine. ;)

[high density]

5. Screw that, I think we'd react like Spain at this point

The bottom line is, do people want more incompetence or not? Do they want an America that continues to waste thousands of lives and billions of dollars in a war of choice, or do they want an America that focuses more on a domestic agenda?

I think the Repukes are overplaying their terrorism hand. There isn't anything we can do to prevent another attack, and dumping endless lives and dollars into the sand over in the Middle East doesn't change that.

[Kool Kitty]

11. Agreed.

If McCain is runnning on "look how great Bush is-no attack since 9/11!" and there is an attack before the election, well, looks like they didn't keep us so safe after all. A non-winner for the repugs.

[WinkyDink]

6. Wouldn't this just prove AGAIN that Republicans can't protect us?

[Gabi Hayes]

17. problem is, we went through the looking glass on Dec.12, 2000, and we

haven't come back

in a rational world, the impact would be obvious, but they don't want anybody to start putting 9 and 11 together and realizing that it was THEY that failed us then, and it will be their fault if it happens again

but THEY are dedicated to keeping the masses in the dark about the reality that destroyed most of what's left of political and economic democracy here, and most of the rest of the world

[barack the house]

7. I personally think it would end the GOP forever especially after the charlie black comment we could

bring it up non stop.

[blogslut]

9. Ya'll need to read the whole article

Mr. Rich points out the ridiculousness of the fear card in post-Katrina/Failed War America.

C'mon. I could only post 4 paragraphs. Read the whole thing.

[high density]

14. I read the article

Which makes the title of this thread mind boggling. Rich says that's the conventional mindset, he isn't claiming that himself.

[blogslut]

15. Sorry

It's a quote from the article. The actual title was just as confusing - If Terrorists Rock the Vote in 2008

[PretzelWarrior]

12. we're all gonna need to review these messages and know them well

as we continue viral marketing for Obama. It will be the day to day conversations about all of this that help us push Obama up to the White House and McCain down to wherever he's gonna end up after this. Retired in Arizona?

[Gabi Hayes]

22. key passage for me, because it demonstrates clearly the difference

between the way the media handled these two situtations...Hillary's, in which they EXCORIATED her, to the point of claiming that she was calling for O's assassination, while they've swept this story under the rug already:

Unlike Hillary Clinton’s rumination about the Bobby Kennedy assassination or Barack Obama’s soliloquy about voters clinging to guns and faith, Mr. Black’s remarks were not an improvisational mishap. He gave his quotes on the record to Fortune magazine. He did so without thinking twice because he was merely saying what much of Washington believes. Terrorism is the one major issue where Mr. McCain soundly vanquishes his Democratic opponent in the polls. Since 2002, it’s been a Beltway axiom akin to E=mc2 that Bomb in American City=G.O.P. Landslide.

[Franks Wild Years]

28. A *foiled* attack...

...is what would benefit the Republicans most of all. Some sort of terrible, malign plot is dismantled at the last minute within the month prior to election day, no loss of life just a brilliantly smooth operation courtesy of Bush's security policy. That kind of scenario is what I think would aid them most out of the three possibilities.

Nothing happening is the best thing for Obama, a big attack really opens things up unpredictably depending on how it's portrayed (I suspect it would narrowly favour McCain judging by the mentality of many but it really could help either candidate depending on the general mood) but a successfully thwarted attack with all the credit going to Bush & McCain is of ten-times more benefit to the Republican candidate than anything else. It probably wins them back the senate & house, too.

[blogslut]

29. Could be

Of course, keep in mind that they've trotted out many foiled plots in the last 6 and three quarter years and yet Bush is @ a lower approval level than Nixon. Those plots have begun to mimic the boy who cried wolf. You have a point but it would have to be one hell of a foiled plot.

[Franks Wild Years]

30. The proximity to the vote....

...is what could really help them a great deal if something like that ever came to pass. Just imagine how crazy the media would go, imagine the praise lavished and ringing in the minds of voters with only a short-time prior to election day. Imagine, say, three or four weeks or even less of blanket coverage of the superb Republican security method.

You know what though? I'm still not even convinced the Repubs would want to cling on to power that badly. Part of me believes that they actually don't mind Obama taking charge for what would likely be a fallow period for the USA on an economic level. Maybe they believe that four years of Obama struggling to amend their own errors sets them up for a period of dominance far greater than the one they've enjoyed under Bush. If you see a season unremarkable in every way, right down to attack ads which are curiously less vitrolic than those you'd expect from a party trying to cling to power by tooth & nail I think it could be suspected that that may be their thinking.

[CJCRANE]

31. GOP strategy is based around well-timed psy-ops

like the Bin Laden videotape in '04 and the Saddam court verdict in '06. They seem to rely entirely on this kind of tactic instead of actual achievements.

The aim of the of the psy-ops is no longer to affect the real vote but to provide a last-minute "narrative" that explains the discrepency between opinion polls and the actual election results. IIRC Bush's '04 victory was (allegedly) due to a sudden surge in "values voters" as well as "security moms" (who apparently became terrified after seeing the Bin Laden videotape).