No Alarms and No Surprises

Let's talk more about electioneering and the war on terrorism. First of all, if you're honest, I think you'll agree that it's not prudent for the Bush administration (whether the Department of Homeland Security or the Justice Department) to continually announce nothing and do so on Democratic holidays. It would be perfectly fine to elevate the danger chart on Edwards Day, but if the message can wait—seeing as Tom Ridge told us not to do anything differently—it should wait. Not for some sense of fairness, but for the government's own credibility: It's just too easy to conclude that they're calling press conferences to announce nothing in order to steal Kerry's thunder. Best of all would be for the government to not announce nothing, since this scares my grandmother, and doesn't even suggest she go buy out Home Depot to calm down. I'm not talking about a conspiracy but they are most certainly risking dilution of the message.

The thing that really caught my eye about the press conference is that I think we're witnessing a huge shift in the way the Bush administration frames the war on terror. Yesterday we saw Tom Ridge restate the terrorist mission: They want to disrupt the elections. We're not given any indication that al Qaeda actually intends to do this and the government has found out, or that this terrorist plot is markedly different from the normal mission statement—restore the Caliphate, eject the great satan from the Red Crescent world, and submit those nations to a radical shariah law. To these ends the difference between Kerry and Bush is irrelevant and we all need to stop this ridiculous talk about who the terrorists are voting for. Frankly, I don't think that we will ever hear from the Bush administration again about these other terrorist ambitions.

How could an attack not influence the election? It's a relevant question, but it's different from the Bush administration's converse: Any attack is designed to influence the election. And that's all beside the point. Our government should be warning us about dangers to our lives, not dangers to their jobs.

UPDATE: Thought I'd point back to an item on continuity of elections in the instance of an attack. It is important to think about these things, don't get me wrong, and the more emphatically the Bush administration frames potential terrorism in its election-deterring capacity, the more we need rules on the books that elaborate our policy. What I'm saying above is that fear-mongering based on danger to our lives is at least focused on what's important.