Whether or not terrorists attack, the republicans always win.

When terrorists don't attack, it's "See? Thanks to Bush's tough anti-terrorist stance, we haven't had any attacks. You NEED Bush to protect you from the terrorists."

When terrorists attack, it's "Be afraid. Be very afraid. The terrorists may attack again, at any time. You NEED Bush to protect you from the terrorists."

No matter what happens, the terrorism issue helps the republicans. If 9/11 had happened under Gore, the administration would have been held responsible for letting it happen. Since it happened under Bush, no one holds the administration responsible. Can you even imagine Gore hitting a 90% approval rating, being perceived as "strong on terror", and being re-elected mainly because of 9/11?

It's precisely because of this no-win situation that Kerry tried to play "tough on terror" and avoided making any anti-war statements. Of course, it didn't work, since no matter what liberals do or say, they are always seen as weak on terror. Whenever Bush's ratings start slipping, another terrorist attack will magically happen somewhere to pull him back up (by coincidence or otherwise). Even if only a handful of people are harmed, it will be represented as "the end of the world as we know it." There is simply no way out of this.

As far as I can tell, the only way out for liberals is to avoid the terrorism issue as much as possible. Point out the ways in which the administration is leaving chemical and nuclear plants unprotected, but mainly focus on local, social and economic issues. Eventually, when enough people lose their jobs, homes, schools and health insurance, they will realize that Democrats can protect them from destruction in more ways than the republicans.

may not be nice for many, but we MUST do it - "today, the great protector let us down..."

:(

parallel the laws of thermodynamics.
1. Ya can't win.
2. Ya can't break even either.
3. Ya can't get out of the game.

Thanks for making me laugh. I wish I had T-shirt with that on it. It's true, depressing, and funny all at once.

that the third law was "and you never stood a chance in the first place."

Engineer jokes....

The "real" 3d law has to do with not being able to reach absolute zero.

We can win with a "the only thing to fear is fear itself" approach. Treat terrorism as a safety issue--something to be reduced, but like car accidents and plane crashes, it's a fact of life. Take the "terror" out of terrorism and display it as the risk that it is; worry about it the way we worry about similar risks.

The repubs benefit because they turn it into fear. They play into the terrorists hands. They're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

That hurts us because the fear removes all logic from the equation. It drives people into the strict father family model, which means that people don't want to think. They only want to trust in their "father" to make them safe.

We can win if we speak the truth. We can take the terror out of terrorism by putting it into perspective. It's somewhat random and it's scary, but so are cancer, heart attacks and strokes. We'll never be risk free and we're all going to die someday. We should be a lot more afraid of cancer than we are of terrorists. Put things into perspective; keep calm; logically reduce the risks where we can. But don't give up living.

Kerry tried to do that when he said he wanted to reduce terrorism to nothing more than a nuisance, since it will never be completely eliminated. Perhaps his use of the word "nuisance" was unfortunate, but the right wing was all over how he admitted he couldn't eliminate terrorism.

I don't know. it seems that today's Americans are much more fearful than other people, and the corporate media only encourage that. In another country, a bomb may explode, and people shrug it off and go about their daily lives. Americans, on the other hand, resolve never visit that country ever again.

I agree completely that people need to realize how low the risk of being attacked by terrorists is for any one person. Fully half of all people who live past the age of 85 get Alzheimer's, and yet you don't see too many people worried about that. The risk of dying in a plane crash is hundreds of times lower than the risk of dying in a car accident; yet most people are much more scared of flying than driving. What's needed is education and perspective.