Time to "aspirate" Republican rule

Ordinarily, summer is when politicians start collecting checks in earnest for their November election runs. They show up at parades, start collecting the mandatory "I care about the people" photos, and lay generally low until after Labor Day, when the fun begins. Of course we also have our illustrious NJ Fifth District Democratic candidate, Paul Aronsohn, whose web site hasn't been updated since June 19, but that's another post for another time.

But this year, Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, and the other illustrious fearmongers of the Republican National Committee are trying to make damn sure you never forget 9/11, and who stood up heroically that day to face down the evil terra-ists.

Oh, wait. He didn't. But no matter, the meme of "Only Republicans, let by George W. Bush, can keep you safe" has worked so far, so why not use it? It's a bit early for the terror alerts to start; usually they wait till September to start announcing their mythical foiled terrorist plots, which means they must be nervous. Why, I have no idea, since George W. Bush has already stated on Larry King that the Republicans will retain control of both houses of Congress (and his people at Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia, and various statehouses have already made sure that they will), but I suppose they have to put on at least a show that the fix isn't already in.

First we had the Florida Ninja Turtles; a bunch of disaffected Haitians who, like the kids in Stand By Me discussing whether Batman would beat Superman, talked about how they could get money from Al Qaeda. Then yesterday we had the news that a bunch of crack terrorists were planning to blast a hole in the Holland Tunnel to flood lower Manhattan and destroy America's economy.

There's just one problem: Lower Manhattan is ABOVE sea level.

Either this country is lousy with some of the most inept terrorists ever (in which case I want to know why, almost five years after the 9/11 attacks, they are still able to get in), or the whole thing is bullshit.

As Buzzflash notes, there's only one mind moronic enough to come up with this last one:

Is it possible that Bush himself brainstormed with Rove about the latest “Terrorist Aspirational Scare”?

The first “reports” coming from the Rovian propaganda machine claimed that a vague group of suspected terrorists were planning to flood lower Manhattan by blowing up the Holland or Lincoln Tunnels.

There was just one major problem with this latest “scare them into voting Republican for a third time” tactic: it defied the laws of gravity and basic physics.

You see, Manhattan is ABOVE sea level. A body of water, such as the Hudson River, won’t rise UP without a rather sophisticated plumbing system. In short, bombing the Holland or Lincoln Tunnels could not possibly, according to the law of physics, flood lower Manhattan and “ruin the American economy by destroying Wall Street.”

There might be some basement flooding, but that’s about it.

It’s an idea so contrary to reality and the laws of physics that only Bush himself could have come up with it.

Some first media reports even dutifully noted that government sources told them that the alleged “aspirational” terrorists got their idea of blowing up the tunnels from the Katrina disaster and the flooding of New Orleans. This is a sure sign that the idea came from the man who completely bungled Hurricane Katrina: George W. Bush. Only Bush could fail to realize that New Orleans is situated BELOW sea level, while Manhattan is ABOVE sea level.

How else do you explain the second-in-a-row crack-head scheme (after the Miami clown posse “plot”) that is so ludicrous, it couldn’t make it past peer review in a class of idiots?

By mid-day, Rove must have realized that he had made a big mistake going with Bush’s “brainstorm” contribution to the third cycle of resurrecting the al-Qaeda bogeyman. (Even though, in a horribly cynical move that shows its true hand, the Bush Administration had the CIA close down its unit hunting Osama bin Laden. That’s the reality side. On the propaganda side, they planted a recent story that Osama was reconsolidating his power over al-Qaeda, a story clearly aimed at instilling fear in the American public. After all, if the CIA isn’t hunting him anymore and Bush says that he’s not important, how could he becoming an increasing threat? You can’t have it both ways in the real world, unless you are a demagogue.)

Because by the afternoon, we were hearing that really the alleged “aspirational” target was something more vague, like flooding the New York Subway system, which no doubt would send shivers of terror through Manhattanites because of all the rats that would hit the streets.

Rather that continuing to cower in the corner with their plastic sheeting and duct tape, it's time for those "patriotic" Americans whose forefathers ran the gamut of defiance from "Live free or die" to "Better dead than Red" and whose motto now is "I'll do anything you want, Mr. President, just promise I won't die" to start questioning why there are ONLY terrorist threats around election time, why five years into their president's so-called "war on terror" they are STILL saying we are under constant threat, and at least demand that they come up with better stories than the last two. Because if the only "plots" that Federal officials are disrupting are from Gangs That Couldn't Shoot Straight, then we are in serious trouble.