Agog with Demagoguery

David Corn is a well-known boob. I know that gasbag is not really worth the bandwidth, but what can I say? I'm a low-hanging fruit kinda guy, these days. I'm doing the best I can.

Anyway, I happened across this and nearly yakked. Hurled. Kevetched. Uebergeben.

Terrorist surveillance program. Consider those three words for a moment. Who could be opposed to a terrorist surveillance program? No one. The operative question is how such a program should function. Who should be monitored? What guidelines, procedures and protections should govern the program? By using this term in a demagogic fashion, Bush is explicitly charging that if a person objects to wiretapping American citizens without a warrant he or she is opposed to penetrating terrorist operations. With such talk, Bush and his aides are engaging in--dare I say it--an Orwellian exercise.

I know our dear Corn is only comfortable calling it a domestic spying program, but until that is actually proven and not just alleged, don't we think it's fair to at least refer to it in terms of the program's stated intention? Corn goes on to state that

They are crassly exploiting the rhetoric of fear. The critics of the warrantless wiretapping okayed by Bush are not saying that they desire no terrorist surveillance program. Yet Bush presents the issue as a harsh either/or--just as he did with the war in Iraq.

Rhetoric of fear. Is it just me or does that sound like a holdover from the halcyon days of "the politics of personal destruction?" And while we're on the subject, who's playing the fear card? Bush? Or those who accidentally keep using words like "Gestapo" or "plantation?" I suppose an argument can be made that Bush is pushing a fear agenda, but isn't it at least slightly disingenuous to suggest that the Democrats aren't? But I progress.

Bush isn't casting it as an either-or. Earlier in Cornholio's piece, he quotes the president thusly:

I did notice that nobody from the Democrat Party has actually stood up and called for getting rid of the terrorist surveillance program. You know, if that's what they believe...then they ought to stand up and say it....They ought to take their message to the people and say, vote for me, I promise we're not going to have a terrorist surveillance program.

Sounds pretty fair to me. I don't hear Chuckie Schu or Teddy Chappaquiddick (I'm in a mood, sorry) criticizing the president's program in a nuanced, piecemeal fashion. Rather, I hear bombastic, generalizing hate-speech about "shredding the Constitution," "spying on Americans," and "digital brownshirts." And if the Dems are so opposed to the program, then they should; as the president suggested, come out squarely pushing their position...whatever it may be today or next Thursday. But for some reason they don't.

Is Bush pushing the either-or agenda or is the opposition? Is Bush using it in a demagogic fashion or is the opposition? Is Bush a fear-monger or are those guys who allege that Social Security benefits will be cut by Republicans fear-mongers? Is David Corn a hopeless hack? How many licks to the center of a Tootsie-Pop?