Shh, Don't Tell the Swing Voters

The White House, the Bush campaign and Republicans are spending hundreds of millions of dollars this year to convince swing voters that George W. Bush is a decisive, no-nonsense fellow who does what's best for the nation. This, of course, requires loads of spin, subterfuge and truth-stretching. There are books overflowing with evidence proving that Bush's campaign is guilty of massive false advertising. Below is a partial list--much shorter than it could be--of matters Bush's handlers would prefer swing voters not know.

Bush doesn't understand the basics of 9/11. After 9/11, Bush said repeatedly that Al Qaeda had attacked the United States because "they hate our freedoms." But this was a comic-book rendition of the conflict at hand, and it ignored a slew of geopolitical realities and Osama bin Laden's actual (and perverse) motivations. As Anonymous (a CIA analyst who headed the bin Laden desk and whose true identity has been revealed as Michael Scheuer) noted in his new book, Imperial Hubris, bin Laden's "attacks are meant to advance bin Laden's clear, focused, limited, and widely popular foreign policy goals"--which include ending US support of Israel and apostate Muslim regimes in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and Jordan. "Bin Laden," he writes, "is out to drastically alter US and Western policies toward the Islamic world, not necessarily to destroy America, much less its freedoms and liberties."

Bush is not taking all possible measures to protect the nation. Bush has said that his Administration is doing everything it can to protect the homeland, but it has resisted some obvious steps--particularly when industry has complained. In October 2002, Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge called for mandatory government regulations covering security at chemical plants. An attack at such a facility could lead to massive casualties. But the chemical industry has opposed such a measure, and the White House has done nothing to turn Ridge's idea into reality. The White House has also sided with the aviation industry in blocking legislation that would require airliners to screen cargo carried on passenger flights. About one-fifth of all air cargo transported in the United States is carried aboard passenger flights. But unlike checked baggage, it is rarely screened. How many swing voters realize that when they fly they are sitting above commercial cargo that has not been inspected, thanks in part to Bush?

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