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Perverse Incentives
According to the Bush campaign, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush." Are people who think this way likely to improve, or degrade the personal safety of the American people? It's a question that, I think, answers itself.
UPDATE: Senator McCain says the video was "very helpful to the president." Again, can a group of people who believe the continued existence of the threat is vital to their political viability be relied upon to eliminate -- or even reduce -- the threat?
October 30, 2004 | Permalink
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» The comparison is apt from Waveflux
From Laura Rozen at War and Piece: The Bush campaign gloating that anything that "makes people nervous ... helps Bush" is utterly disgusting. They sound like the Sopranos. As Laura notes, more from Matt Yglesias and Atrios.... [Read More]
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» Gift Basket
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Comments
admittedly, desperate times require desperate remedies, but still, this strikes me as a rather desperate effort on rove's part to create his fabled "momentum." Somehow, people are supposed to remember only the good things about bush (such as they are) and forget everything else, including that his watchwords for months were "wanted dead or alive...."
i continue to believe that the net effect of the tape is zilch (tuesday will tell us for sure), and if they're reduced to saying "we want people to think about terrorism," i don't think that's a position of strength....
Posted by: howard | Oct 30, 2004 5:58:04 PM
Your question makes me nervous about my personal safety.
Posted by: Vance Maverick | Oct 30, 2004 5:58:07 PM
This makes me sick at heart and sick to my stomach.
Would it be acceptable for Kerry to say that the eight Marines killed today in Iraq was a "little gift"?
The man that showed up to try and influence our elections murdered 3000 people. The fact that he is still alive, well, and fucking with us may be a little gift to the Republican party, but it is a real slap in the face to Americans.
WHY IS HE STILL ALIVE?
Posted by: cj_ | Oct 30, 2004 6:07:45 PM
Matt is a fear monger. True. But in these times of Holy War (World War IV), it is the absense of fear which is utterly irrational. If the archtraitor and self-proclaimed genocidal war criminal Hanoi Jean Forbes "Flipper" Kerry repaints the White House and turns it into the Red House, God forbid, America is doomed. When our prayers for the Jesus-annointed George W. Bush pay off on Tuesday, Americans will be able to breath a sigh of relief and Democrats will do what they do best, whine about how they hate America.
Posted by: Modern Crusader | Oct 30, 2004 6:14:20 PM
It is interesting that Bush says America will not be "influenced" by the terrorists (meaning: "to vote against me because I can't catch bin Laden is to let bin Laden dictate the election") while claiming the terrorists' 9/11 attack "changed" everything (meaning: "please don't hold me to my last undying core principle that nation building is wrong").
To recap: anyone not "changed" in fundamental ways by terrorists' attacking us, is delusional; but anyone "influenced" by the terrorists' actions is weak and vacillating.
For the love of God, America, and President Bush, please be changed but not influenced. I guess you must be French to parse the difference.
Paging Orwell.
Posted by: epistemology | Oct 30, 2004 6:17:33 PM
You have to be self-aware enough to ask the question before you can even care about the answer.
Unfortunately, there are now people pledging personal oaths to Chimpy in public. When do think they'll introduce the special W salute?
Posted by: LarryB | Oct 30, 2004 6:24:25 PM
Son of Bush's own "Hit the Trifecta"
Posted by: Jeffrey Davis | Oct 30, 2004 6:32:12 PM
Are the Bush campaign people like the Mafia, or what? 'Be afraid -- or we'll send more people to break your knees.' Disgusting guys.
Posted by: Laura | Oct 30, 2004 6:37:02 PM
Hmmm... I kind of agree with you, but I can't help feeling that this reads like an Instapundit post with the names changed.
Posted by: william | Oct 30, 2004 6:48:28 PM
What's the converse? We should feel safer when Kerry is president because Americans believe him to be soft on terrorism?
Posted by: righty | Oct 30, 2004 6:50:09 PM
Our enemies never stop thinking of new ways to harm the country, and neither do I.
Posted by: George W Bush | Oct 30, 2004 6:56:03 PM
THIS MAKES ME SO ANGRY I WANNA TYPE IN BOLD AND UPPERCASE.
Posted by: praktike | Oct 30, 2004 7:21:40 PM
Did that work?
Posted by: praktike | Oct 30, 2004 7:25:56 PM
right on, Matt. and, um, close that bold html tag.
Posted by: belle waring | Oct 30, 2004 7:26:38 PM
Hello, Liberals. I bet some of you think that Osama's face only reminds people that Our President supposedly didn't care about Osama in that so-called "debate." Wrong.
Well, He, Our President, outsmarted you all. He does care. America is scared and should be. And only a President who has been afraid can lead us. You see, you don't understand the strategy. We looked for the weapons, didn't find them, rallied round our Leader, went to war, Won The War, let some of the weapons be looted, allowed Osama to live *just long enough* to make that video......you just are too feeble minded to see the strategy. Like we're really "losing the war". We're just waiting to smoke out the terrorists and smash them. But you don't get it.
All these schemes just scare wimpy liberals and guarantees they will cower in their homes. And the Real Americans beat your pathetic turnout and re-elect our leader on Tuesday. Just you watch....from your bunkers. Hah. I love America. I love W. And I love myself. But you liberals are too full of fear and hate to love.
Posted by: Free Lover of Freedom and Free Liberty | Oct 30, 2004 7:30:41 PM
What you're saying is' the conventional wisdom' which is so often wrong and yet so many people repeat it as if it's scripture. Things have changed at a tectonic level in the last 8 days and this is evident everywhere even in 'locked up' California. People are wondering why Osama has managed to keep himself so well and still make videos. When I see Pat Buchanan or Chris Mathews even start in on that saw I flip him off. Having watched these elections since JFK in 1960 as
a lad, there's been no election like this since 1928!
Posted by: d1494 | Oct 30, 2004 7:31:05 PM
>According to the Bush campaign, "anything that makes people nervous about their personal safety helps Bush."
Another words, the people are like sheep and must be herded by their betters.
Can we have another round of discussion of Leo Strauss? Heh heh heh.
(I'm not bothered by the tape, since I've thought bin Laden was alive for almost three years. (Cuz, natch, I never defaulted to thinking he was dead.) I still think he's in Pakistan (why go anywhere else?), and I still suspect he's in Karachi (best place to be). Of course, I still think he's getting assistance of some sort from the ISI. I worry (in a mild way) about my personal safety. I have no interest in being dragged away by federal thugs...but that obviously doesn't help Bush.)
So: what was the actual Bush plan for the Middle East?
We get attacked. Internally they believe the moving hand behind events is Saddam Hussein. Bush wants to get rid of 'terror'. Nobody actually perceives bin Laden as the threat. After all this is the first terror tape to be run on TV in quite some time. (Remember they wanted that stuff off the air?)
Blair and Powell prevail on Our Only President to make a stab a blowing away the Taliban. Money goes to Pakistan, Rumsfeld has a chance to play with his toys, and the it 'works'. But Osama does not die. They SAY he's dead, cuz well, they want him out of the way so they can get on the proper war.
The proper war is remaking the Middle East. After all most of the terrorism of the last 20 years or so has involved Israel, and this is clearly ALL the fault of the states involved. Iran, Iraq and Syria. Get them out of the way, and the Palestinians (sheep that they are) will suddenly become reasonable and peace will descend upon the land. (Or in a darker view, Israel can finally be rid of them.)
So what we need here are some pliant Arab states that will play nice and pump oil. And Saddam Hussein sucks (did I mention that?).
Unfortunately, a campaign to eliminate 'root causes' (root causes, in this case, being the non-pliant leader ship of Syria, Iraq, and Iran) only has political traction if you staple the word democracy to it. And even that is not good enough to swing a majority of Americans around. So instead a white lie has to be worked up about this WMD business. Certainly some of the True Believers actually buy this. From 'our' point of view however, Saddam himself is the WMD, and he's a shit anyways, never does what he's told, made Daddy look bad and so forth, so he's got to go.
Therefore, the first step is to roll over Iraq. Saddam blew up the oil wells last time, which was bad for the economy, so we need to secure those and kill him. Which means we need to move FAST. Plus, that will make it a done deal that the opposition won't have to harp on. We'll need a pliant leader to take over and it looks like we have one in Ahmed Chalabi. If he fucks up, our guys can march out of their bases and dump him, so he's on a leash. We don't actually care about weapon dumps or WMD or democracy (Arabs! Democracy! Hah!) or intelligence files or any of that shit, because we aren't going to hang around for any length of time.
As soon as we're done with that, we can knock off Syria (they have a pipeline to Iraq ya know) and then turn around and dump the mullahs in Iran. Game Set Match. We will have demonstrated our 'resolve', so the Arab states will shut up and toe the line and get their terrorists under control. (Not to mention, OPEC will be DEAD!) Al-Queda will wither away without support, Saudi Arabia will behave when faced with a choice between their heads and doing what we tell them. And all that cheap oil will mean a great economy and a great vista of easily-won elections will open in front of us as far as the eye can see.
(Now THERE is some 'Hobbesian realism' jack!)
Just one wee little problem. Back in Desert Storm, Tommy Franks was in command of US Seventh Corps. While the Marines were pushing in the Kuwaiti pocket, VII didn't push hard enough to get behind them and close the road back into Iraq. 700 tanks and several divisions got away that shouldn't have escaped. And that was probably enough to allow Saddam to cling on to power in the face of serious revolt. And whaddya know, Tommy Franks has learned his lesson about moving fast, but then...oopsies, he doesn't put enough guys on the ground to encircle the Taliban leadership and get bin Laden. Oh, well. On to Baghdad! (It's like 'On to Richmond!' but different.) So, a nice, quick, TV-friendly advance that secures the oil wells, the oil ministry, and puts Chalabi In Charge...oopsies. We sorta missed Saddam. Shit! Man, Franks has a knack for that. Now we're gonna have to hand around in Iraq looking for that SOB. And we can't go into Syria in an election year. Oh, well, they're pacifist frenchie Democrats, so it should be easy to get rid of them and THEN we can get on with it.
Waitaminute! This Kerry loser is whining about democracy in Iraq! BAHAHAHA! Fat chance of that. He probably wouldn't even nail Iran. Christ. I can't believe these liberals.
This channeling of Dick Cheney brought to you by the letter M. (Sorry, the spirit moved me.)
So, basically, we've ignored the problem (Al-Queda) in favor of this other deal and neither situation is working out. We're on the defensive, the army is really tired, we got no pookie, and there is no sign whatsoever that Bush intends to get Osama. Essentially, the only ACTUAL chance we have to climb back into this silly (It is serious. It also ridiculous.) war and finish these fuckers off is to elect Kerry. (Not that we can neccessarily manage it even then.)
So Osama checks in and the spin machine kicks into gear to turn a negative (Osama is alive) into a positive (clearly, he endorses Kerry, because Bush is whopping his ass!). Of course the sheeple will fall for it, Christ, they fell for that old trick about nuclear weapons.
This would well and truly be a marvelous farce of the deepest hilarity if it wasn't for all the dead people.
ash
['...']
Posted by: ash | Oct 30, 2004 7:55:44 PM
Well it was good to see the ol' mass murderer and master terrorist and (curiously enough) just before Bush's election too! I was wondering if the Bin Laden family would find some way to pay back little Georgie for allowing their precious son to escape certain death in a Tora Bora cavern. I mean rreally, the Bushes and the Bin Ladens go way back. And from his appearance, I would wager that Usama finds semi-retirement in the mountains of Pakistan quite agreeable. Never I have seen him in such good health, and so obviously well fed and relaxed. Probably getting a few of those heavenly virgins prior to the paradise thing, the lucky dog.
Anyway, like I said, it was good to see him for I had begun to believe he had died or fallen seriously ill due to a lack of food and clean water, or from the constant fear of capture, or perhaps from hard living of an unsanitary back country camp. Afterall, A man so relentlessly hunted by the ruthless agents of unparalleled American power should be a man nervously living on the proverbial knife's edge. At least that is what I would have expected.
Now besides wondering about the possible effect that Osama's latest video may have on the unthinking fearful masses, I now have to wonder how it is possible that the world's most wanted man appears so comfortable? It's almost as if he doesn't have a care in the world.
Pity, justice to the perpetrator of 3,000 dead Americans should mean something more, but then what do I know? I also expected Ken Lay to spend the rest of his life in prison for the crime of stealing the retirements of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Posted by: James Emerson | Oct 30, 2004 8:01:53 PM
"Again, can a group of people who believe the continued existence of the threat is vital to their political viability be relied upon to eliminate -- or even reduce -- the threat?"
No.
Posted by: bob mcmanus | Oct 30, 2004 8:42:57 PM
"Again, can a group of people who believe the continued existence of the threat is vital to their political viability be relied upon to eliminate -- or even reduce -- the threat?"
Ain't it the truth.
Posted by: Petey | Oct 30, 2004 8:55:04 PM
what sophistry. I suppose, by the same logic, that since a bad economy is good for John Kerry's election prospects, he cannot be trusted to attempt policies which ameleiorate the economic situation?
Posted by: green | Oct 30, 2004 8:56:24 PM
If he wants to get re-elected... think about it.
Posted by: Barbar | Oct 30, 2004 9:05:59 PM
Error, green.
False analogy.
The president doesn't have enough control over the economy to make any real difference. That's why we can't hold Bush accountable for the faltering recession.
Right?
Posted by: bobo the clown | Oct 30, 2004 9:17:51 PM
In a way, I'm glad that it is conventional wisdom that bin Laden's reappearance favors Bush. At least now the Coulters and Instapundits can't accuse us of hoping for that event.
Posted by: son volt | Oct 30, 2004 9:31:35 PM
More evidence that McCain is just another hack for the monsters.
Posted by: Green Democrat | Oct 30, 2004 10:50:22 PM
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