All Fear, All the Time!

Yet another example of the fear-mongering that I wrote about yesterday. This time it's a TV ad which "features al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his top lieutenant, Ayman al-Zawahiri, speaking, but the only sound is a ticking clock in the background. The terror leaders' quotes are posted on the screen and key phrases in the quotes stand alone as the rest of the quote fades out".

What is it with these people? After apparently succeeding in making greed a virtue, we see that BushCo is now championing cowardice! Why are they constantly building up -- hyping -- The Terrorists? The answer is obvious. They're trying to scare people, to keep their attention focused (as Glenn said yesterday) on "the scary prospect that The Terrorists will kill us" -- anything in fact, except BushCo's manifold failures and its real agenda of cronyism and corruption.

It was good to see Josh Marshall offer this advice regarding an appropriate response to the latest ad.

The answer to this is not outrage. And the answer's not to say this sort of ad is out of bounds. The correct answer is contempt and ridicule. The president and his party just don't have any credibility on this issue left. And Democrats need to act with the confidence that voters know that too.

DHS is run like a joke.

Iraq, unquestionably, has increased the threat of terrorism rather than diminished it.

The president's whole approach to protecting the nation is a bust. He's spent hundreds of billions and thousands of lives on threats that didn't exist and ignored ones that did.

Doing some more cut and paste of bin Laden just doesn't cut it any more.

UPDATE: Atrios has something to add:

The point of terrorism is, as the name suggests, to terrorize. Not simply to kill and destroy, but to frighten the broader population. It puzzles me why the RNC has found common cause with terrorists in their new ad campaign, and it puzzles me more why they want to highlight the fact that over 5 years after 9/11 George Bush has failed to catch the guy responsible.

It is very strange that they're proud of this.