A Nation of Fear

The Washington Post reports today that Vice President Dick Cheney “warned on Tuesday that if John F. Kerry is elected, ‘the danger is that we’ll get hit again’ by terrorists.”

Cheney and Bush are trafficking in the politics of fear, attempting to frighten American voters into supporting Bush, whose record against terrorism, it really needs to be pointed out, is abysmal. And as Bush squanders more resources in Iraq, al Qaeda is regrouping, becoming an even more elusive, rhizomatic network.

The truth is, if terrorists do strike again, much of the blame can be laid upon the current administration, whose foreign policies alienate allies in much of the world and foster hate in the rest of the world, whose domestic policies are trashing constitutionally-granted civil liberties and transforming America into a fear-driven self-censored police-state, and whose election strategy seems simply to be to reduce Americans into a cowering lot of obedient sheep who would be lost without their protector and shepherd, George W. Bush.