Mary Cheney is a GOP distraction

I think it's obvious what's going on here with the whole Mary Cheney brou-ha-ha. The Republicans know that Bush really stuck his foot in it last night when he denied every downplaying his concern about finding bin Laden. They know that his comment and the video of him saying otherwise was going to be the main talking point on the news shows. So they need to create some kind of shit storm to distract attention away from Bush's fuckup.

The fact that their complaints against Kerry make no sense is besides the point. The point is that they need to eat up all the air time so that their candidate's stupidity doesn't get sufficient air time.

I can understand the outrage of many at the way the Republicans are playing this to the hilt, but we must not allow that to distract us from hitting them where it really hurts.

Not that concerned?

You should be.

Spread it far and wide.

Osama bin who?

The best thing about Bush's lie about never saying he wasn't worried about bin Laden is now the media will have to play that clip over and over again in the coming days (assuming they aren't completely in the tank). This clip was outrageous when Bush said it, but it quickly disappeared into the media ether at the time. Now Bush, through his own bumbling, has forced it back on the tube. Now many people who never saw it when it happened in real time will get to see it now and go, "He said WHAT?"

What would Christopher Reeve do?

Donna Zajonc takes the moment of Reeve's death to speculate on how we should deal with the election outcome.

In three weeks, we will elect a president of the United States. And only one thing seems certain: Half of America isn't going to feel like celebrating.

I'm sure Christopher Reeve mourned the result of his injury, its effects on his life and family -- but never did we hear a discouraging word from him. Viewing his injury as some great challenge, a test of character, he taught us to see the good in even the most dismal loss.

If your candidate doesn't win the presidency, how will you maintain your political inspiration, your hope for the future? Will you view it as an opportunity, the way Reeve transformed his injury from tragedy to triumph?

Will half of America vilify our next president because the election dashed their hopes? If so, we all will face an even nastier outcome to our already seething cultural war, a war that's more insidious than the terrorism we are so determined to defeat.

Such a division can never be healed by demonizing our leaders, whoever they may be.

As I said previously, there is a significant number of Bush supporters who will view a defeat for Bush as the worst of calamities and will willingly succumb to any smear campaign that the GOP pushes against Kerry after he wins. But there is a significant number of Kerry supporters who will do likewise if Bush should win. We must not allow ourselves to fall into that trap. We must, if the worst should happen, turn defeat into victory. We must not succumb to recriminations and automatically credit as truth any accusation against Bush. We must instead redouble our efforts and do  better next time.

We must not become the enemy we fear.

Fear!

Please read this diary from kid oakland over at the DailyKOS. It lays out in the starkest terms the modus operandi of George W. Bush in the final weeks of this campaign. At its heart the Bush campaign is not based on scaring the undecided into its camp, its about scaring the waverers within its camp into believing that leaving will put them in mortal peril. As harsh as Bush is on Kerry and those who support him, he is several times worse on those who might even consider abandoning him at a time of America's greatest peril.

I think he has it exactly right. And what is deeply troubling is that when Bush loses, the people whom he has scared into his camp will be let loose into a world of their greatest fears, a world without George W. Bush(*). I fear greatly the impact on our future when 40% of our electorate is convinced in their heart that their new President is a threat to their very existence. For that is the message that George W. Bush has implanted in their hearts.

Those people will be ripe for the first post-election smear campaign that the Republicans will spring on a President Kerry. We have to be prepared for the fight to come, for it will be worse than anything we are facing right now.

(* - Let me put it this way: that 40% are being trained to fear a world without Bush so that they would abide anything that the Bushies might do in order to keep him in power or, if necessary, restore him to power. And I do mean anything.)