LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!

LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY!

I called today's blog LIONS AND TIGERS AND BEARS, OH MY! Because that is what the Republicans have encouraged us all to chant. Their theme has always been BE AFRAID, BE VERY, VERY AFRAID OF THE CAMOUFLAGED TERRORISTS THAT ROAM THE WORLD. THEY ARE EVERYWHERE AND YOU ARE NOT SAFE UNLESS WE ARE IN CHARGE.
My goodness, I was so tired of hearing their dire warnings, I started to laugh at them... the coded colors of fear. I thought, one day they are going to tell us we are going to be attacked and we will all laugh in their face and say "WHAT ELSE IS NEW?". But it will be real this time and they will not be able to keep us safe because the CRY WOLF maneuvers will backfire, just like it did in the fairytale.
And so it seems, their worn-out CRY WOLF, not only doesn't work, they have nothing to replace it with. So, they still use it. And because it no longer works, it infuriates them because they don't know which way to turn now. When you rely on one modus operandi and refuse to hear any deviation on it and it suddenly breaks, there are no other systems available in a pinch.
TALK ABOUT A PINCH? They are being so pinched I even think I hear a right wing collective OUCH! Oh, what's that, do I also hear a one word loud outcry: "UNCLE!"? I certainly hope so for the sake of our country. ThinkingBlue
PS: The below Tomgram tells it all:

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Tomgram: An American Tipping Point?

Losing the Fear Factor

How The Bush Administration Got Spooked
By Tom Engelhardt

It's finally Wizard of Oz time in America. You know -- that moment
when the curtains are pulled back, the fearsome-looking wizard wreathed
in all that billowing smoke turns out to be some pitiful little guy, and
everybody looks around sheepishly, wondering why they acted as they did
for so long.

Starting on September 11, 2001 -- with a monstrous helping hand from
Osama bin Laden -- the Bush administration played the fear card with
unbelievable effectiveness. For years, with its companion "war on
terror," it trumped every other card in the American political deck.
With an absurd system for color-coding dangers
to Americans, the President, Vice President, and the highest officials
in this land were able to paint the media a "high" incendiary orange and
the Democrats an "elevated" bright yellow, functionally sidelining them.

How stunningly in recent weeks the landscape has altered -- almost
like your basic hurricane sweeping through some unprotected and
unprepared city. Now, to their amazement, Bush administration officials
find themselves thrust through the equivalent of a Star-Trekkian
wormhole into an anti-universe where everything that once worked for
them seems to work against them. As always, in the face of domestic
challenge, they have responded by attacking -- a tactic that was
effective for years. The President, Vice President, National Security
Adviser, and others have ramped up their assaults, functionally accusing
Democratic critics of little short of treason -- of essentially
undermining American forces in the field, if not offering aid and
comfort to the enemy. On his recent trip to Asia,

the President put it almost as bluntly as his Vice President did at home: "As our troops fight a ruthless enemy determined to destroy our way of life, they deserve to know that their
elected leaders who voted to send them into war continue to stand behind them." The! Democrats were, he said over and over, "irresponsible" in their attacks. Dick Cheney called them spineless "opportunists" peddling dishonestly for political advantage.

But instead of watching the Democrats fall silent under assault as they have for years, they unexpectedly found themselves facing a roiling oppositional hubbub threatening the unity of their own congressional party. In his sudden, heartfelt attack on Bush administration Iraq plans ("a flawed policy wrapped in illusion") and his call for a six-month timetable for American troop withdrawal, Democratic congressional hawk John Murtha took on the Republicans over their attacks more directly than any mainstream Democrat has ever done. ("I like guys who've never been there that criticize us who've been there. I like that. I like guys who got five deferments and never been there and send people to war, and then don't like to hear suggestions about what needs to be done. I resent the fact, on Veterans Day, he [Bush] criticized Democrats for criticizing them."! ) Perhaps more important, as an ex-Marine and decorated Vietnam veteran clearly speaking for a military constituency (and possibility some Pentagon brass), he gave far milder and more "liberal" Democrats cover.

For the first time since the war in Iraq began, "tipping points," constantly announced in Iraq but never quite in sight, have headed for home. Dan Bartlett, counselor to the President and drafter of recent Presidential attacks on the Democrats, told David Sanger of the New York Times that
"Bush's decision to fight back… arose after he became concerned the [Iraq] debate was now at a tipping point"; while Howard Fineman of Newsweek dubbed Murtha himself a "one-man tipping point."

Something indeed did seem to tip, for when the White House and associates took Murtha on,
John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, and other Democrats leaped aggressively to his defense. In fact, something quite unimaginable even a few days earlier occurred.

When Republican Rep. Jean Schmidt of Ohio, the most junior member of the House, accused Murtha (via an unnamed Marine colonel supposedly from her district) of being a coward, Democratic Representative Harold Ford from Tennessee "charged across the chamber's center aisle to the Republican side screaming that Ms. Schmidts's attack had been unwarranted. ‘You guys are pathetic!' yelled Representative Martin Meehan, Democrat of Massachusetts. ‘Pathetic.'"Click here to read more of this dispatch.

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