Let's Play Politics -- With Terror

By Keith Schmitz

For those you who can't see to understand why we are not quite on board with the way TeamBush is "fighting terror" let's follow the money -- or the planned lack of it.

Turns out that Bush is proposing to slash $23 billion in security funding to already overburdened state and local governments for stuff like police and port protection.

For an administration that never fails to wave around the terror threat to keep people in line, to silence political opposition, to win elections, to beat on the press, are now telling us the problem is well in hand at it is time to reel up the ladder.

Somebody better tell the eight (or whatever number of) dwarfs running for the GOP presidential nod. As Bob Herbert put it in this morning's NY Times, these guys are acting like adolescent boys to put across who would be the most violent in going after perceived terror threats.

Guess what folks. Doing the business of war on terror at some point will call for spending money. But of course this is not the first disconnect to reality heard on the stages of these debates.

Let's be clear. Anyone who thinks that Democrats and all but the most fringy liberals are against dealing with world-wide terror are not merely mistaken. They are just treating their readers, friends and listeners like rubes. They know what they are doing and that is rather than finding ways for us to coexist in fighting this challenge they are driving divisions for cheap political points. Locally we have John McAdams, a man with a mean streak as wide as a super highway, and Charlie Sykes carrying that water.

And anyone who thinks that the Bush administration cares about us because they insist they are protecting us, that tax cuts for the wealthy don't come first, have $23 billion worth of evidence of what counts in their minds. It ain't you.

We believe there are terrorists out there and something prudent, rational and effective has to be done. The Bush administration seems not to think so.