EJ Dionne's Going in for the overkill: "The answer lies in the word "overkill". If there is one thing that came through clearly to the broader public from last week's convention, it is that Republicans were out to frighten the country about Kerry's ability to lead in dangerous times. They were willing to say almost anything and were perfectly happy to distort Kerry's record. Convention speakers were, by turn, sarcastic, ferocious and mean."
And just in case we didn't get the message last week, Cheney spells it out for us today..."‘It’s absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we’ll get hit again and we’ll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States’’ (quote from IHT).
If Kerry were elected, Cheney said, the country might return to a ‘‘pre-9/11 mind-set’’. That's the same Kerry whose advisors include Gary Hart of the Hart-Rudman Commission (which saw its 3-year-long terrorism study and detailed recommendations got ashcanned by Bush in 2001). That's the same Cheney who not only dropped the grenade (i.e., ball) on terrorism before 9/11, but has consistently pursued the same Iraq-based agenda both before and after. If anyone understands pre-9/11 mindset, it's Cheney.
