Fear, smear, and God

The Bush campaign can be boiled down to three words: fear, smear, and God. Vice President Dick Cheney and House Speaker Dennis Hastert have asserted that we are more likely to be attacked if John Kerry is elected. They are essentially saying, "Vote Bush or Die!"

And the Republicans are using images of Mohammed Atta and Osama bin Laden in an advertisement designed to persuade Americans that only Bush can be trusted to protect the United States. It's an odd ad, since Bush himself failed to protect this country from the attacks of 9/11, even though he was warned more than forty times in Presidential Daily Briefings about bin Laden.

From fear to smear is just a short hop for the Republicans. First, they peddled those Swift Boat lies, making it seem as though John Kerry were unworthy even though he won five medals in Vietnam while Bush never served there and never won any medals--except, perhaps, Screw-Off of the Year.

Then they caricatured Kerry as a hopeless flip-flopper, and, truth be told, he helped them out in this regard.

Finally, they wheeled out God. In at least two states, Arkansas and West Virginia, the Republican Party has been sending out pieces of literature claiming the Democrats are going to take everyone's Bibles away, once again proving that there is no low that the Bush campaign will not stoop to.

On the front of one such envelope, sent from the Republican National Committee, was a picture of a Bible with the word "BANNED" slapped across it. "This will be Arkansas ... if you don't vote," it said.

Amazingly, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, defended the mailing, saying it was in response to activist judges who want to recognize same-sex marriage and remove the "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance.

No surprise, then, that six weeks before the election, Republicans introduced legislation to prohibit judges from having the authority to strike those words from the pledge.

Karl Rove is adamant about finding four million additional votes from rightwing evangelicals, and he'll squeeze them out any way he can.

He may be having some success. I was driving through rural Wisconsin recently and I saw a huge billboard: "One Nation Under God: Bush/Cheney."

John Kerry is now making strong arguments about the Iraq War. He had the damnedest time finding them, though.

He painted himself in a corner first by voting to authorize the war. And he added another coat of paint this summer when he said that even if he knew Saddam didn't have weapons of mass destruction, he still would have given Bush that authority.

Kerry had no graceful way to escape so he jumped out a window, but fortunately he landed on his feet. Beginning with his September 13 speech at New York University and continuing through the first debate, he managed to articulate, in forceful language, the most persuasive points against the Iraq War.

He mentioned the $150-$200 billion price tag. He highlighted the blunders by Rumsfeld during the occupation. And he enumerated the falsehoods by Bush and Cheney in the lead-up to the war.

Then he talked about the costs in American lives (but what about the Iraqis?). Most effectively, he argued that the war has made us less safe.

My only question is, what took him so long?

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