Bush has got nowhere else to go. He’s got to resort to the BIG SCARE. Hence, his speech of 10-6. The shining democracy on the hill (Iraq) has given way to the terrorist den on the Tigris-Euphrates. I mean, his advisers (speech writers) are hard-edge. They (he) has it now comparable to the Cold War—the confrontation between America and al Qaeda. What would you do if you’d staked your fortune on a salted mine?

And hard on the heels of his speech, NY’s mayor, to underline the Prez, Bloomberg has unabashedly described an imminent threat to his subway system. The story is some captive in Baghdad (Note: Baghdad) told them. You can very easily imagine the intimate communications that exist between low-level insurgents and al Qaeda operatives presumably in NY.

They’re apparently going to frighten us into submission to their misbegotten policies regardless of our inclination to reason out some of the conflict. You will be scared, Mr. and Ms. America, regardless of your reasoned inclinations. If you don’t yield, you get a night with Dick Cheney and Scooter Libby from which no one ever returns the same.

Wow. We’re really getting deep into this Orwellian (‘Manufacturing Consent’) stuff. They appear to think they can call up the bogeyman of terrorism anytime to obtain the desired results—acquiescence of the public.

That’s a broad assumption. Oh, I realize many similar assumptions concerning opinion manipulation are sound and time-tested, but how long will the public actually take seriously comic figures like George Bush and Michael Bloomberg?

I don’t know. For all their brilliance, I’m not sure Madison Avenue could any longer sell this pig-in-a-poke of the continued occupation of Iraq.

No doubt, there are some terrorist figures out there, but, then, there have been for many years. And even passingly competent intelligence might have prevented 9/11. And there aren’t many avenues left for terrorists that are so ready-made as airplane missiles.

I personally think the American public is just going to have to bear this hardsell for the duration of Bush’s term in office. We’re certainly going to hear it replayed over and over—at least through the ’06 elections.