Friday, October 29, 2010

THEIR SUSPICIONS VS. OUR SUSPICIONS

You probably know about this:

Two packages containing explosive devices originating in Yemen and bound for two places of Jewish worship in Chicago set off a global terror alert on Friday. One package was found at a FedEx facility in Dubai, and another was found early Friday morning at an airport in Britain, sparking a day of dramatic precautionary activity in the United States.

Speaking at the White House Friday afternoon, President Obama called the packages a "credible terrorist threat against our country," and confirmed that they "did apparently contain" explosives....


I've been poking around the right-wing message boards and I'm noticing a common thread in some responses to this story.

From cappopper at Fox Nation:

The Great Voter Intimidation Scam!!

From Nevadadad46 at Lucianne.com:

... I suspect we are experiencing another "boogyman" fright to make folks who would want to vote change the status quo jittery. Democrats are not above this kind of stunt....

From Hipponips at The Blaze (Glenn Beck's new site):

...All the packages in the US have been found to NOT be any threat. NONE ZIP ZERO
Don't let this prevent you from voting.


We had a couple of terror scares around elections during the Bush years, and if you were a lefty and had any suspicions about the timing, you probably thought the point was to inspire more votes for Bush's party. Maybe some of us were paranoid just like the folks I've quoted above, but we had a very different paranoid idea; I don't think it ever occurred to us to respond with fear of voting. And we never thought anyone on our side would respond that way, or even that the Bushies thought we would.

I think that's because our side doesn't wet its pants at these terror threats. But the fact that voter intimidation crosses minds on the other side means that people on that side clearly do.

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