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Jesus Poppin' Back Pimples! I go on a whiskey and marijuana bender to celebrate the release of Drug War martyr Tommy Chong, pass out for a day or three, and wake up to find that Preznit George W. Busholini's minions are floating a proposal to postpone November's presidential elections in case of a terrorist attack!
Problem is, BushCo and associates have been priming the terror pump for over a year now, in a patently obvious attempt to terrify Americans into believing that such an attack is inevitable. Maureen Farrell of Buzzflash has compiled a list of apocalyptic proclamations made by Republicans, conservatives, and the journalists who cover them. It's well worth checking out.
On their own, each of the quotes is disturbing. Taken as a whole, they seem to suggest that the Powers That Be have made up their minds on this, and there's nothing anybody can do to stop the boulder from rolling down the mountain. And look out! Your house is in its path.
There's erstwhile conservative opinion-maker Bill Safire promising "the October surprise affecting the U.S. election will be... a major terror attack in the United States." And then there's the unnamed "top" White House official who tells U.S. News and World Report that "we assume an attack will happen leading up to the election. It will happen here."
During the weeks-long orgy of quasi-psychotic conservative reaction to the recent Spanish elections, Witchfinder General John Ashcroft warned that "Al-Qaeda may perceive that a large-scale attack in the United States this summer or fall would lead to similar consequences" as what happened after the Madrid Railway bombings. We can assume the "similar consequences" in this case would be the ousting of a disgraced and discredited incumbent.
FBI director Robert Mueller echoed Ashcroft's sentiment: "In the wake of what happened in Madrid, we have to be concerned about the possibility of terrorists attempting to influence elections in the United States by committing a terrorist act."
Perhaps because he gets the exact same talking points faxed to him every morning, rapidly metastasizing media tumor Sean Hannity agreed with Ashcroft and Mueller, going so far as to tell his vast radio audience that "if we are attacked before our election like Spain was, I am not so sure that we should go ahead with the election. We had better make plans now because it's going to happen." And they say "the Left" is pessimistic!
More recently, Homeland Security Chunkhead-in-Chief Tom Ridge delivered yet another terror alert in what has become an endless string of propitiously timed attempts to divert attention from bad news for BushCo, and/or good news for the Democrats. Last week, as John Kerry was announcing his choice of John Edwards as a running mate, Ridge told reporters that "credible reporting now indicates that al Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process."
When pressed for specifics - anything that might indicate this particular warning was more substantial than the dozens of previous warnings that have so far come to naught (knock on wood) - Ridge could provide nothing. Like Colin Powell lying his ass off at the United Nations, all Ridge had to offer was his absolute certainty. The terrorists will attack, and their target will be America's democracy.
Implicit in all this administration rhetoric is that a Bush loss would be a win for the terrorists. Implicit in this implication is that Kerry is the terrorist's candidate of choice. Apparently, nobody told BushCo that al Qaeda has publicly endorsed the Bush/Cheney ticket!
Fortunately, some people aren't buying the BushCo spin. Congressman Jim Turner (D-Texas), a ranking member on the House Select Committee on Homeland Security, has gone on the record with his doubts, declaring that after several briefings by U.S. intelligence officials, "nobody knows anything about timing."
Regardless, Newsweek magazine is reporting that three federal agencies are operating under the assumption that a terrorist attack timed to coincide with and/or interfere with November's elections will take place. These three agencies - Ridge's Homeland Security, Ashcroft's Justice Department, and the newly-minted Election Assistance Commission - are currently hammering out the details of how to "postpone" elections on a federal level. This plan is based on the logic that the best way to prevent terrorists from disrupting America's democratic process is to pre-emptively disrupt that process ourselves, thus robbing the terrorists of their intended target. Pure genius.
According to the official version of events, the person who started the postponement ball rolling was Election Assistance Commission chief DeForest Soaries, who first suggested that his agency be given authority to implement such measures in a memo sent to Congressional leaders shortly following Ridge's most recent doom-laden warning.
Before we continue, we should probably take a brief look at the man behind the memo.
On the biography page of his church's website, the Reverend Doctor DeForest B. Soaries Jr. is described as the senior pastor of New Jersey's First Baptist Church of Lincoln Gardens. A pioneer in the arena of faith-based social programs, Soaries has helped put together a number of tax-free bureaucratic money-pits to profit from the Bush administration's promise to lavish tax dollars on the religiously insane.
His educational background includes a B.A. from Fordham, a Masters degree in Divinity from Princeton Seminary, and a "Doctor of Ministry" degree (whatever that is) from United Theological Seminary (whatever that is). His walls are adorned with fancy papers from numerous fundamentalist Christian and homeskool-affiliated diploma mills. He is especially proud of his Kilgore Award for Creative Ministry, presented annually for outstanding and innovative ministry.
His political experience consists of a failed run for Congress in 2000, after which he was appointed New Jersey's Secretary of State by then-governor Christie Todd Whitman. In January 2004 - less than half a year ago - Soaries was hand-picked by Preznit Dubya to lead the new Election Assistance Commission.
But don't worry. I'm sure Soaries is his own man, completely non-partisan and independent-minded. And his deep Christian faith will no doubt prevent him from taking part in any sinister conspiracies to help BushCo retain their grip on power. I mean, just because every God-fearing person knows in his heart of hearts that Jesus the Christ personally selected Dubya to be Preznit in 2000, that doesn't necessarily mean He couldn't change His Glorious Mind! Jesus is a registered Independent, after all.
But the question that continues to befuddle my squishy, addled brain is this: If the Bush administration is working on plans to postpone elections in case of a terrorist attack (which they are), and if they've all but guaranteed that such an attack will take place (which they have), is it paranoid to believe that they've all but guaranteed that they're going to postpone the November elections?
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