Safire the Hack

How do you write this with a straight face -- as if the Bush administration isn't based on fear mongering??!!

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/opinion/20safi.html

October 20, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Year of Fear
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON — Down the block from The Times's Washington bureau is a Christian Science church, which, since 9/11, has had this message on its wall: "Be strong and of good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest."

That's comforting, because the Fear Room at Kerry campaign headquarters is on a hair trigger to turn any breaking news into a personal threat.

You an oldster? The fearmongers' pitch is that President Bush is plotting to snatch your Social Security check. Bush's sound idea of setting aside a small portion of your payroll tax as a personal nest egg for your retirement is twisted by the fearmongers into the dread word "privatization." Many older Americans safely covered by Social Security now needlessly worry about being thrust out into the snow.

You a youngster? The fearmongers noticed an urban legend floating around the Internet about a "January surprise" to bring back the draft and throw you into the first wave into Falluja. Never mind that it won't happen, because the military knows that a volunteer army works best; the scare tactic is sure to whip up the old fears in the young voters.

READ MORE:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/20/opinion/20safi.html

Sorry...

He's getting old and senile.

A lying bastard who can lie us into the lying war with Iraq can lie away ss, medicare and bring back the draft. It ain't fear mongering, sweetie, it's reality. And it's about time scum like you deal with it and with the thing you have put into the Oval Office.

like safire and brooks (who i find even more miserable than safire)

.

Social Security and Medicare HAVE TO constantly be defended (by democrats) if they're going to continue to exist, and the GOP frames this as "scaring seniors."

If you're for Israel, he's your pal.

If you're for the Palestinians or peace he hates you.

:puke:

David Brooks dribbled the same flimsy nonsense in his NY Times column this week, too. (Do you think the Freepers ever notice that the supposedly "liberal" Times has two right-wing columnists, while the conservative WSJ has no liberals? Neither do I.)

The idea must be to try to distract Americans from Bush's increasingly incoherent, impotent stabs at Kerry - he's a liberal! No, he's a gay-basher! He wants terrorists to destroy America! He wants to take away your Bible! He wants to increase taxes! He wants Americans to learn French! He thinks George W. Bush is dangerously incompetent! (Okay, even Bush can tell the truth occasionally) - by painting Kerry as an unbridled, shrill, and unjustifiably angry mean-spirited attack dog. I don't think it's working, because if you take either Brooks's or Safire's columns and insert Bush every place they wrote Kerry, they actually make sense.

If you contrast the way they describe Kerry with an actual Kerry stump speech, it becomes a replay of that old punchline, Who are you going to believe - me or your lying eyes? Maybe the American people really are blind and deaf, but I don't think they're that blind and deaf.

Besides, Kerry is running against an incumbent - of course he's going to attack! I'm sure David Brooks and William Safire would just love it if Kerry consented to be dignified, quiet and sacrificial. I'm sure that's what Bush and Rove expected before the campaign started. But Kerry's fighting back - and to the Koolaid drinkers, that's just not fair.