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Political musings...
Aug. 11th, 2004 09:22 pmAccording to the news, there are indications that al Qaeda may be planning to assassinate a political leader in the United States between now and Election Day. When I heard that, I immediately imagined that some segment of the political spectrum would start saying that it'd be a plot by Bush to take Kerry out of the picture and "steal yet another election." I have to admit, though, I was a little surprised when it turns out people are, apparently seriously, coming up with harebrained conspiracy theories along such lines.
I wonder about the folks who believe that Bush would arrange to whack Kerry; hell, that's even further over the top than a recent Planned Parenthood campaign that explicitly calls Bush an "evil menace" and reduces political polemics to a new common-denominator low. I place such lunatics squarely in the camp of those who really and truly believed, deep down in their hearts, that Hillary (or Bill) aced Vince Foster in the Lincoln bedroom. They all need help.
Frankly, if I were Bush and believed this threat to be true, I'd plan to double or triple the Secret Service detail around Kerry, because if you think about it, the worst thing that could happen to Bush's reelection campaign would be for Kerry to be assassinated.
I am reminded of an analysis, undertaken early in junior high school, of the effects of Kennedy's assassination on the '64 election. Those too young to recall the details (90+% of LJers, if the stats can be believed) should be reminded that the result of that election -- less than a year after JFK was shot -- was a tremendous, overwhelming landslide for Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater.
Our history teacher maintained that in '64, the Powers That Be in the Republican Party realized that nobody from the GOP was going to beat Johnson in November, not even if it were the resurrected Christ, simply because there would be too much of a "sympathy vote" in solidarity with the deceased JFK. So, they let the conservative wing nominate Goldwater and in the end it really woudn't have mattered that the Democrats did or did not run the "Daisy Girl" attack ad featuring the little girl pulling petals off a flower as the world ends in a nuclear cloud (which they did, BTW, immediately after a network broadcast of Dr. Stranglove, of all movies): AuH2O was gonna get creamed.
So if Kerry is taken out of the race "with prejudice" (as was once a popular phrase in Hollyweird movies), then whoever fills the open slot in the Democratic ticket in November will almost certainly be a shoo-in, especially given the boost from the media's blatant bias and the obvious, emotion-stirring battle cry, along the lines of: "Bush can't protect us!"
Be that as it all may, the fact is that al Qaeda's "choices" are limited in the same manner. If they whack Kerry, the Democrats will likely win and will be free to do "something different" (as opposed to Kerry, who just recently said that he would have voted to give George Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq "even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found," which is a strong indication to me that he will pursue a Bush-like agenda if elected, although it should be noted that they don't call Kerry "Flipper" for nothing, but I digress...).
If they target Bush, then if Kerry wins, he'll just about have to pick up "the fallen torch" and get with the anti-terror program; in the alternative scenario, the Republican winner most certainly will.
Then again, it just may be that it's all a bunch of hot air. Any major terrorist attack against the United States before Election Day will likely not net the terror network the victory they achieved in Spain in March. If anything, such an attack will swing votes toward the candidate who best talks the talk and walks the talk in the War on Terror department.
Cheers...
I wonder about the folks who believe that Bush would arrange to whack Kerry; hell, that's even further over the top than a recent Planned Parenthood campaign that explicitly calls Bush an "evil menace" and reduces political polemics to a new common-denominator low. I place such lunatics squarely in the camp of those who really and truly believed, deep down in their hearts, that Hillary (or Bill) aced Vince Foster in the Lincoln bedroom. They all need help.
Frankly, if I were Bush and believed this threat to be true, I'd plan to double or triple the Secret Service detail around Kerry, because if you think about it, the worst thing that could happen to Bush's reelection campaign would be for Kerry to be assassinated.
I am reminded of an analysis, undertaken early in junior high school, of the effects of Kennedy's assassination on the '64 election. Those too young to recall the details (90+% of LJers, if the stats can be believed) should be reminded that the result of that election -- less than a year after JFK was shot -- was a tremendous, overwhelming landslide for Lyndon Johnson over Barry Goldwater.
Our history teacher maintained that in '64, the Powers That Be in the Republican Party realized that nobody from the GOP was going to beat Johnson in November, not even if it were the resurrected Christ, simply because there would be too much of a "sympathy vote" in solidarity with the deceased JFK. So, they let the conservative wing nominate Goldwater and in the end it really woudn't have mattered that the Democrats did or did not run the "Daisy Girl" attack ad featuring the little girl pulling petals off a flower as the world ends in a nuclear cloud (which they did, BTW, immediately after a network broadcast of Dr. Stranglove, of all movies): AuH2O was gonna get creamed.
So if Kerry is taken out of the race "with prejudice" (as was once a popular phrase in Hollyweird movies), then whoever fills the open slot in the Democratic ticket in November will almost certainly be a shoo-in, especially given the boost from the media's blatant bias and the obvious, emotion-stirring battle cry, along the lines of: "Bush can't protect us!"
Be that as it all may, the fact is that al Qaeda's "choices" are limited in the same manner. If they whack Kerry, the Democrats will likely win and will be free to do "something different" (as opposed to Kerry, who just recently said that he would have voted to give George Bush the authority to go to war in Iraq "even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found," which is a strong indication to me that he will pursue a Bush-like agenda if elected, although it should be noted that they don't call Kerry "Flipper" for nothing, but I digress...).
If they target Bush, then if Kerry wins, he'll just about have to pick up "the fallen torch" and get with the anti-terror program; in the alternative scenario, the Republican winner most certainly will.
Then again, it just may be that it's all a bunch of hot air. Any major terrorist attack against the United States before Election Day will likely not net the terror network the victory they achieved in Spain in March. If anything, such an attack will swing votes toward the candidate who best talks the talk and walks the talk in the War on Terror department.
Cheers...
