Say anything

So, if we're fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here, but they're "impotent" and can't fight us over here, then we don't need to be fighting them over there, do we?

AP story this morning on Bush's homeland security adviser, Frances Townsend shooting her mouth off on TV yesterday:

WASHINGTON - Seemingly taunting Osama bin Laden, President Bush's homeland security adviser said Sunday the fugitive al-Qaida leader is "virtually impotent" beyond his ability to hide away and spread anti-American propaganda.

The provocative characterization came just days after bin Laden attracted international attention with the release of a video in which he ridicules President Bush about the Iraq war and reminds the world that he not been captured.

Ahead of the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist strikes, White House aide Frances Fragos Townsend made a clear attempt to diminish the influence — or the perception — of the man who masterminded those attacks.

"This is about the best he can do," Townsend said of bin Laden. "This is a man on a run, from a cave, who's virtually impotent other than these tapes."

I say nobody needs to die to protect us from video tapes.

What is the matter with these people?  I know we sometimes think they really want another terrorist attack, but sometimes I think they really want another terrorist attack.

Townsend might as well have said, Bring it on.

There is no logic here, no thought, no concern about the effects of words.  Bin Laden, terrorism, the War in Iraq, dead American soldiers, dead Iraqi civilians---none of this means anything to them.  They have only one thought, one concern, one goal.

Protect George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from the consequences of their incompetence and their stupid, arrogant, petty rush to war.

General Petraeus is going to go in front of Congress to make the case for continuing the war and continuing it in the exact same way as we've been fighting it the last four and a half years.  Tomorrow is the anniversary of the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center and the Bush Leaguers had great plans to exploit our grief and anger all week.

Along comes bin Laden to remind us all that the man who ordered and planned those attacks is still alive, still thriving, still plotting against us and that he wouldn't be if George Bush hadn't let him get away in order to rush us off to his private little war against Saddam.

Looks bad for Bush.  Townsend knows just what to do.

Say something, anything, even if it contradicts what you said last week and what you're going to say next week.  Just say whatever will distract the Media and the People from the important truth:

Bush and Cheney let the man who killed 3000 Americans six years ago tomorrow and who is still out there plotting to kill more get away so they could rush us off to their private little war in Iraq.

If bin Laden appears on our TVs looking like a threat, they declare him impotent.  But when they need him to be a threat to justify their war, then everybody in the Middle East who doesn't like us is al-Qaeda.

From the AP story:

The consensus of the nation's top intelligence analysts is that bin Laden's terrorist network is anything but impotent.

Terrorism experts say the network is regrouping in the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border region. The latest National Intelligence Estimate says al-Qaida is growing in strength, intensifying its efforts to put operatives in the United States and plotting against U.S. targets that will cause massive casualties. The U.S. is in a "heightened threat environment" and al-Qaida is the most serious threat, the analysts found.

Comments

[Victoria]

I had exactly the same thought when I read her comments. Reprehensibly provocative... downright sickening that this is what we get from the people charged with keeping the country safe. Between this and the Patraeus PR rollout (see Josh Marshall today), it's hard to find a strand to grab onto to effect a positive course correction. So instead, we sit here watching more hell unfold.

[Victoria]

I had exactly the same thought when I read her comments. Reprehensibly provocative... downright sickening that this is what we get from the people charged with keeping the country safe. Between this and the Patraeus PR rollout (see Josh Marshall today), it's hard to find a strand to grab onto to effect a positive course correction. So instead, we sit here watching more hell unfold.

[sfmike]

The video and the stills of OBL look so fake I'm amazed that we're supposed to actually be buying this absurd scenario, and yes, Ms. Townsend is in clowd-cuckooland. The rot from the powers-that-be in this country seems to be seeping into everything. My personal reaction is to want to eat lots of garlic and get reacquainted with a few handy religious icons.

[KC45s]

Protect George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from the consequences of their incompetence and their stupid, arrogant, petty rush to war.

Maybe, but that's not all. They equate OBL with liberals and the Democrat(ic) Party. Naturally, when OBL needs to be insulted, they used the same punch-in-the-nose, sounds-great-on-Hannity rhetoric employed to insult Nancy Pelosi and MoveOn. Conservatives only have one speed when it comes to slapping at their enemies. To believe they contemplate "consequences" is to say they argue from a basis of logic (cause-effect). They don't. They throw down whatever shit comes to mind and dare you to get in the mud with them. That they can't differentiate between words that rile up liberal bloggers and those that provoke violent terrorists isn't surprising--after all, every fight is Good vs. Evil--but it should give us pause.

[catherine]

Well, why not stir up a hornet's nest when it personally costs you nothing? Plus, it allows dumb dumb to show his daddy how strong and virile he is -- yea ick.