The Frightened Generation

There's no small amount of speculation that the Bush administration will suddenly "find" Osama bin Laden a few weeks before the election. Maybe they've had him in custody for a few months now. After all, there have been some secret operations in Pakistan. Secret except for the fact that Pakistan seems to object to being invaded by American troops.

And there's been speculation that Sarah Palin (foreign policy expert because she can almost see a desolate, deserted part of Russia and because Alaska shares a border with Canada) will suddenly realize that she must spend more time with her family and resign from the ticket a week or two before the election. She will say, "The 'liberal media' have 'crucified' her family and she must blah blah blah blah blah." I don't know what the rest of the story will be, but "liberal media" and "crucified" will certainly be in the sound bites that the GOP sound machine will repeat and repeat and repeat.

So what if they find bin Laden? Doesn't that take away a big part of their platform?

No, it wouldn't. Capturing OBL wouldn't end the organization. Bush and Cheney have been the best recruiting agents the group could ever have hoped for and the leadership is distributed and cell-based. Taking out the top guy now would have virtually no effect. And even if it would, the scare mongers will have things to use in scaring us. When the Chinese or the Russians write the history of this period, I suspect we will be referred to as The Frightened Generation.

Example: A new group called "Stop Child Predators" wants to stop Google's Street View. The head of the organization is a former deputy director of the American Conservative Union, Stacie D. Rumenap. She says that Google Street View makes it easy for anyone to obtain detailed photographic information about you and your family. In a video on the organization's website, Rumenap (on the website StopInternetPredators.com) says a predator could use the service to map the most likely route your child walks to school and even figure out the location of your family's bedroom windows.

Something like four fifths of all abuse cases involving children are perpetrated by someone who is in the family or who is known to the family. Four fifths. Eighty percent. Those people already know where you live and where your bedroom windows are. The people we have to fear, then, is ourselves! If you think this sounds like an absurd plot line for The Simpsons, you're right. It once was.

Boo! Betcha I scared you. Vote for me so I can do it again! Instead of FDR's "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself," today's GOP offers "The only thing we have is fear."

Bullshit!