HYPOTHETICAL: There is another terrorist attack...

[Gringo]

over the course of the next year, with hundreds of Americans killed. LIHOP/MIHOP issues aside, how does it play out for the Bushies?

[BeHereNow]

1. I am afraid that I voted

for the sheeple scenario-
There are still far too many IGNORANT people
in this country.
They are dreadfully afraid of losing their "stuff"
and will cling to anyone who promises to
protect them from allowing that to happen.
The majority does not care about what is happening
to our young people in Iraq- they do not care
about what is happening to the Iraqi people-
They only sense that they may be losing their
ability to graze at the mall and consume mass
quantities of things they don't need.
Therefore, they will continue to send other people's
children off to die.

BHN

[Ediacara]

2. People would be furious

Bush's big selling point is his ability to protect us. If he can't stop another attack, he may as well resign because he'd get about 4.2% of the vote, and most of that would be accidental.

[ZenLefty]

4. Fox news reminds them another attack is inevitable

A message I see a lot, especially on conservative networks (who prey on the fears of their audience) is that another terrorist attack is inevitable. I feel this may be true myself, though it may not be on the same scale as 9/11. I think they will play this tune in the event of another terrorist attack, constantly reminding people that we need to be ever viligilant.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. You forgot to add the most logical choice:

"The terror alert level is raised to "Severe", the Bushies declare martial law, and all future elections are postponed until further notice."

[TheBlob]

5. If another 9/11-level event happens just prior to the 2004 election

(I'm talking one or two weeks before)

then the administration can ride the "Fear Factor" all the way to another term.

If it happens months before, then reality and public perception will chip away at Bush and he'll be annihilated in the election.

It's all about timing.

[Bucky]

6. Divergence

In the current climate, I fear we wouldn't be as united as we were in 2001. For saving lives, for doing our duty as citizens, sure we'd come together and cooperate.

But underneath it, there's this three year track record of a president saying some of us aren't quite as patriotic as the rest of us. That is, there's this ongoing divisiveness saying "Shut up and don't question us; We're in charge, quit thinking; If you dissent, you're pro-terrorist."

On my side, there would be this attitude "It's Bush's fault. We watered down half the Bill of Rights and terrorists are still killing us. We murdered 1/3 of the army in Iraq and blew 6000 innocent civilians to smithereens and STILL these loonies are hating us."

On the other side there'd be this big push to crack down more on civil rights, round up more dark people, reinstitute the military tribunals that the Bushnaviks first discussed in September '01 and have since shut up about. They'd say it's no time to be questioning the president. We'd say his choices in Iraq have made the problems worse.

But honestly, who do your blame for the house fire, the match or the kerosene? The terrorists or the conditions? The villains who inspire them or the fools who allow them to flourish?

We'd care for our wounded, honor our dead. But it would take days, not months, before we started blaming the other side. Within a month we'd hear plausible theories tying this newest attack to Bill Clinton's all-powerful, world shattering penis.

The current president has hobbled this nation's ability to unify. We used to disagree with each other. Lately I think most of us don't really like each other anymore.

[Gringo]

7. First of all,

Even I wouldn't say that we "murdered 1/3 of the army". Was that a typo?

Anyway,

"Lately I think most of us don't really like each other anymore."

Right on target. I think the problem is that the republicans of yesteryear have morphed into the present-day "repugs", people with no concern whatsoever with the larger society, just themselves, and their ever-growing piles of useless possessions. Even poor friends of mine tell me "Oh, I wish I could afford a Hummer." WHY!? It's a stupid, ugly, gas-guzzling tank! And in the meantime, we dems have stayed more or less the same, putting the well-being of society, democracy, and equality before our own materialistic whims. I don't know how we can overcome such a fundamental gap in values.

[Bucky]

8. oops

You're right. They were not "murdered" of course. They were killed on the battlefield. The fight was one-sided enough to call it "slaughtered," but that isn't a murder per se. The number of Iraqis killed in Shock-n-Awe is at least 12,000 military and 7000 civilian.

That's a lot of people to kill in month's time. If the end result of said slaughter is simply more terror in the US and a working alliance between al-Qaeda and Saddam's thugs, the political feedback at home will not be pretty.

I do disagree that all Republicans are absorbed in an orgy of materialism and greed. The greedheads are the squeaky wheel of the GOP, but my experience is that most of them are simply uninformed people who make decent neighbors. Their love of George Bush is tribalistic--he's one of us--rather than avaricious. Their values aren't the different, only the means they currently judge to be the best for achieving common goals.

[karlschneider]

9. I have no problem calling it murder. There was no war, there was

an invasion of a sovereign nation under the aegis of phony excuses. Actually, "genocide" is a better term.

[Gringo]

10. I have no problem with the word "murder" either

I believe every soldier who dies in the name of Bush's phony cause is Bush's murder victim. That being said, I'm pretty damn sure that 1/3 of our army is dead. That would mean that our entire standing army is only 900 people.