With his latest 'special moment,' Keith Olbermann once again is creating a buzz, and justifiably so. This time, Olbermann has called the GOP out on their tactics and identified them for the fear-mongerers that they are. The sensation he creates is due to the fact that he isn't using code words. Mr. Olbermann simply dispenses with 'polite' speech and cuts to the chase.
What is causing the latest uproar is his use of the term 'terrorists' to describe the GOP.
After referring to a GOP campaign ad that uses apocolyptic imagery of Osama bin Laden to attack the Democrats, Olbermann makes the following observation:
You have adopted bin Laden and Zawahiri as spokesmen for the Republican National Committee!
“To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. To coerce by intimidation or fear.”
By this definition, the people who put these videos together—first the terrorists and then the administration—whose shared goal is to scare you into panicking instead of thinking—they are the ones terrorizing you.
By this definition, the leading terrorist group in this world right now is al Qaida.
But the leading terrorist group in this country right now is the Republican Party.
The fact is, using that definition of what a terrorist is, Olbermann is right.
Furthermore, the GOP tactic of fear-mongering is one that many of us on the left have been identifying for quite some time now. It is the only card remaining that the Republicans can play. They certainly cannot run on their record of challenging, or keeping any sort of checks-and-balances on, their leader.
Since it has worked for them in the past, the party has been Roved into believing that it will work for them again.
I am sure that I am not the only one who finds it ironic that a clueless figurehead who has admitted in the past to being "not all that concerned" about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden...a man who went months without even uttering the man's name...can't get enough of Osama now.
Could it be that the recent passion of Bush and the GOP to invoke the fear of terrorist attack and nuclear holocaust, should the Dems win, is coming back to bite them in the butt?
Has America forgotten under whose watch 9/11 occurred?
Keith Olbermann just gave George Bush and the GOP what they so richly deserve. He identified them for who, and what, they really are.
Olbermann concluded his piece with the following:
Setting aside the fact that your government has done nothing else for those five years but pat yourselves on the back about terror, while waging pointless war on the wrong enemy in Iraq, and waging war on the cherished freedoms in America;
Just on this subject of counter-terrorism, sir, yours is the least competent government, in time of crisis, in this country’s history!
“These are the stakes,” indeed, Mr. President.
You do not know what you are doing.
And the commercial—the one about which Zawahiri might say “hey, pretty good—we love your choice of font style”?
All that need further be said is to add three words to Shakespeare.
Mr. President, you, and that advertisement of terror, are full of sound and fury—signifying (and competent at) nothing.
Has there ever been a better representation of what this administration, despite all of its bluster and empty rhetoric, truly stands for?
(For the full transcript and link to the video, point your browser here)
4 comments:
I love the comments. Look no further than the initial bombing campaign in Iraq to show this administration employs terrorism. What is "Shock and Awe" if not a euphemism for "Terror?" We can drop huge bombs on Baghdad to intimidate and terrorize our enemies, but we expect the world community to support us all while denouncing terrorism worldwide. To me, it sounds like we're both terrorists AND hypocrites.
Thanks for this link as Keith Obermann has become the Thomas Paine of our time.I'm sure he know his tenure is precarious but he's been fired more than once before and is courageous enough to be principled and take this opportunity too show America what being a patriot is and what the Republicans are, the true terrorists. Like Hitler turning on the German people and intensifying his war on the Jews the closer the Russians came, the Republicans have declared war on the American citizens and Kieth knows it.
Fear is not always a bad thing, Scoot. In the right doses at the right time, it can save your life. That's what it's there for.
You want a really great read about viral fear and the effect it has on ordinary people? Take a look at THE NEXT OSAMA at www.jodere.com. It's fiction, but it may as well be front page news.
D
Thanks for the feedback.
I guess my concern is that fascists always operate out of the climate of fear that they create.
If BushCo can keep us in a perpetual state of fear and 'war,' they can continue their assault on our civil liberties.
I appreciate that this is a point that Keith Olbermann clearly gets.
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