The Nossiter Net The net that shall enmesh them all Edited, Written, and Published by J.C. Nossiter

The Morning Mendacity Tuesday, September 28th, 2004

The Nossiter Net is cast  to snare some of  the riper rascalities of the day.  Comments?  editor@nossiter.net

Look beyond the flabby pallor and you’ll discover Dick Cheney’s inner self:  Scary Spice.  Speaking to a hand-picked crowd of loyal Republicans in Pennsylvania, the Vice-President was at his fear-mongering worst: "The biggest threat we face today is that one of these terror cells is organizing in the middle of one of our cities with a nuclear weapon, and the prospect that the next time they launch an attack against the U.S. it won't be just a few thousand lives. It may be a few hundred thousand."*  His point:  be afraid, be very afraid, especially if Senator Kerry is elected.  But according to the New York Times, Mr. Cheney’s shtick scared nobody.  The Pennsylvanians had other things on their minds, such as lost jobs, poor schools, and lack of health insurance. The same thing happened in Michigan and Missouri, those other crucial swing states.  The friendly crowds peppered the candidate with questions about domestic matters, and Mr. Cheney responded by droning “boo.”  At least the real Scary Spice can sing. The Bush administration has been playing the fear card since 9/11, but its tactics have shifted.  Instead of the universally ridiculed color-coded threat warnings issued by Mr. Ridge at politically opportune moments, Dick Cheney is trotted out to dispense dire omens of impending catastrophe if we “make the wrong choice in November.”  Now he’s discovering the Chicken Little syndrome:  insist that the sky is falling often enough, and you’ll be dismissed as a dumb cluck. The Vice-President may have to do some early Halloween shopping and buy himself a fright mask.  His boss insists that freedom is on the march in Iraq. What both he and Mr. Cheney seem to overlook is that in a truly free society, citizens enjoy the freedom from fear.  The grim irony, of course, is that given the Bush administration’s failure to heed pre-9/11 intelligence,  and its subsequent failure to bring the 9/11 perpetrators to justice, we really do have grounds for fear – Mr. Bush’s re-election. *http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/27/politics/campaign/27cheney.html ©J.C. Nossiter 2004

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