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This post, written by Gavin McNett, originally appeared on Sadly No!
This story is making the rounds today:
Santorum Suggest New Terror Attacks Will Change View Of War
[...]
Santorum went on to clearly imply that terror attacks will occur inside America which will alter the body politic and lead to a reversal of the anti-war sentiment now dominating the country.
"Between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public's going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we're seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public's going to have a very different view," said the former senator from Pennsylvania.
That would really rescue the Republican Party's fortunes, wouldn't it? A little boomity-boom between here and November, and America will be terrified back into voting for conservative bunco artists like Rick Santorum.
One finds it hard not to wonder what Rick might know that a grand jury might later find interesting. Because here are 'unnamed officials' and Michael Chertoff plowing the same turf:
White House calls meeting on al Qaeda threat
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House has called an urgent multi-agency meeting for Thursday to discuss a potential new al Qaeda threat on U.S. soil, ABC News reported on Tuesday.
Top intelligence and law enforcement officials have been told to meet in the White House Situation Room to report on steps to minimize or counter the threat and what steps are being taken to tighten security at government buildings, ABC said.
The meeting would be one of a number that have been convened in light of new intelligence and information learned from the recent failed car bomb attempts in London, ABC reported, citing a senior U.S. administration official.
Is it that home-grown terrorists are usually total chumps? Incapable of building a car bomb and liable to resort to a desperate Plan B, such as crashing their car into a wall and setting themselves on fire? Because we knew that already. Eek-terror-plot. Eek-terror-plot. Eek-terror-plot. Eek-terror-plot. With enemies like these, who needs Mr. Bean?
The unnamed official told ABC the level of concern of a new attack in the United States was now higher than it had been in some time.
The White House had no immediate comment on the report.
[...]
ABC News cited senior U.S. intelligence officials as saying that new information suggests a small al Qaeda cell was on its way to the United States or may already be in the country.
Separately, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board his "gut feeling" is that the United States faces an increased risk of attack this summer.
Chertoff said his assessment was based on past patterns of terrorists in Europe, intelligence he did not disclose and recent al Qaeda statements, the Tribune reported.
If something happens between now and November '08, we can naturally expect a sustained shriek of 'we told you so' from the right-wing high-chair-thumpers, with immediate shrieky-hooting demands to shred the Constitution and surrender America into despotism, George W. Bush variety (i.e., 'tin-pot'). It's a mistake to note that these folks are always saying contradictory, illogical things, and to assume from it that they have no principles. They do. It's just too simple for us to see, much of the time.
Their constant claim, since roughly the end of Truman's last term, that America is engaged in an historic battle-of-wills against a powerful enemy, that the present emergency demands drastic measures, and so forth, is only a rationalization, a trick picked up from the exigencies of World War II, that sets them free to support 'drastic measures' -- which are what they're really attracted to. The organizing principle behind right-wing rhetoric is simple human spite: The political ideology of its rhetoricians is that somewhere in America, at all times, someone is stealing their parking spot or taking the last jelly donut, and someday there'll be hell to pay. Someday, as it were, a real rain will come and wash all the scum off the streets.
The Spite Caucus isn't particular about its methods. The more that 'liberals' revere, for instance, the Bill of Rights, the more they attack it under one pretense or another, but ultimately for that reason alone. It gives them the joy that a jerky twelve-year-old gets from jumping up and down on another kid's sand castle -- a Sandschloßspringenfreude. They support torture in part because it is torture, but also (and ultimately more importantly) because they imagine 'liberals' helplessly enraged by the manly drastic-methods that our enemies have regrettably forced us to use against them, through no fault of our own. If disaster follows, then disaster, after all, is what they were seeking. They thrive -- with intermingled outrage and glee -- on any chaos or tragedy that doesn't touch them personally. Their horror at 9-11 is identical with their exuberance at the leveling of Fallujah or the attack on Beirut.
But the point is that such people attract leaders who are either like them in spirit, or who know how to manipulate this most easily-manipulated of American constituencies. Because truly, the right-wing yellers may be the least of our troubles. If there's an emergency claim of executive power brewing (and here we have to ask: given what we know about this administration, where does the line of paranoia properly fall?), nobody will believe what's happening until the dust settles. And 9-11 has taught us that dust can take a passing long time to settle, as it were.
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