When the attack failed, decent humans breathed a sigh of relief.
Republican officials, led by our own John Cornyn, celebrated. ‘What a great opportunity to capitalize on peoples’ fears,’ they must’ve thought. As Cornyn’s National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee said in a fundraising email yesterday:
Even more scary was knowing this country was one faulty detonator away from an American airliner being blown out of the sky. Remember right after the inauguration, it was revealed President Obama no longer wanted to acknowledge the “global war on terror” and referred to terrorist acts as “man-made disasters”? Back then you and I knew that showed a remarkable lack of understanding of the threat America faced but in the face of what nearly happened a couple days, it is even more infuriating.
To you and me and our friends throughout America, the healthcare bill is a man-made disaster. And when a foreigner tries to blow up an airliner, it is an attempted terrorist attack.
Now more than ever we need a check in the Senate to stop the radical Obama agenda down until we elect a Republican President in 2012.
Cornyn wasn’t alone of course. Republican Congressman Pete Hoekstra, who is running for governor of Michigan, blamed the attack on “weak-kneed liberals” who threaten national security. Then he asked for money.
Facts don’t matter much to national Republicans, but here are some anyway:
- Underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was permitted to fly from Amsterdam to Detroit during the Obama Administration.
- It appears that warnings from his father were ignored during the Obama Administration.
- It was the Bush Administration that allowed him to study religion right here in Houston.
- It was the Bush Administration that issued him the visa he used to enter the United States this Christmas.
- And here’s a minor point: despite warnings, 9/11 happened during the Bush administration.
Should an investigation be conducted? Of course. Should officials in the Obama administration be held accountable if facts warrant? Absolutely.
But that’s not what matters to fundraising national Republicans like Cornyn. What matters is that immediately following the attack, President Obama didn’t hold a news conference set to Lee Greenwood music in front of a crying bald eagle painted on a waiving American flag with yellow ribbons tied to it. What matters is that Obama didn’t declare that bombing of Yemen would commence immediately just before he dug into a steaming helping of freedom fries. That’s what bothers Republican primary voters, and that’s what’ll bring out the big bucks from the big suckers.
Fear is how Republicans manipulate and motivate their base, raise money, and win elections. In 2004, it was critically important that conservatives turn out to vote because liberals wanted to destroy marriage, and Republicans were busy defending the country from another 9/11 like the last one Iraq pulled off.
But Muslims, teh gheys, and immigrants are only the Republicans’ most recent bogeymen. With Barack Obama in the White House, it’s only a matter of time before a more tried and true object of conservative fear returns to churn up the teabagging masses:
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Be afraid, be very afraid. And make your checks or money orders payable to the Republican senatorial Campaign Committee.
Partisan Gridlock with Geoff Berg airs every Friday from 3:00 – 4:00 pm on KPFT, 90.1 FM in Houston, 89.5 FM in Galveston, and everywhere else on Facebook or at www.kpft.org.
