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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (77396)	6/22/2006 2:32:09 AM
From: American Spirit	Respond to of 81568

Bush has helped Al Qaida immensely. Listen to Bob Graham the former head of the Senate Intelligecne COmmittee. He says Bush's decision to go to Iraq happened just as we could have knocked out Al Qaida within 6 months. But Bush let them all go. Now the Taliban are back too.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (77396)	6/22/2006 11:59:32 AM
From: Cogito	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

>>What exactly do you mean? Is saying that we should be fearful of another Al Qaeda attack and take steps to prevent it "manipulation?" Usually, you say it's manipulation if you think the threat is being exaggerated or made up. I don't think Bush is making it up at all.<< Nadine - Well, you asked for it. It's manipulation when you always mention 9/11 and Saddam Hussein together, while knowing there's no real connection. This tactic was so effective that a majority of Americans became convinced Saddam was directly involved with that attack. It's manipulation when you use lines like "we can't let the smoking gun be a mushroom cloud." (Especially when you have every talking head in the administration repeat the line on every news and interview show for several days.) It's manipulation when all your speeches use language calculated to produce the maximum amount of fear. It's manipulation when you give those speeches in front of blue backdrops with repeating text on them. Remember those "protecting the homeland" and other such backgrounds? It's manipulation when you attack your opposition as being unpatriotic for disagreeing with you. It's manipulation when you accuse the press of being biased every time they report anything that looks slightly bad for you. And it's definitely manipulation when you use straw-man arguments like "Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a plan and it is not an option." Since NOBODY had said "Let's just trust him" that is just out and out propaganda and manipulation. And that is far from being the only example. There are a couple of excellent books on the subject. One of them is "The Republican Noise Machine" by David Brock. There's an even better one, which discusses how the Bush Administration hit a new high in the manipulation of public opinion, by a couple of guys who ran a web site devoted to fact-checking both sides. Finally, when you resort to dirty tricks, like the "push polls" that were used against McCain in the primaries in 2000, you're beyond manipulation. Just before the primary there, a poll was commissioned in South Carolina, where likely McCain voters were asked "Would you be more or less likely to vote for McCain if you knew he had a black child?" This, of course, makes it sounds like he had a bastard with some black woman, when in fact he adopted a bangladeshi child. I could go on and on. The Bushies certainly did. - Allen