{"id":6407,"date":"2004-09-07T20:29:47","date_gmt":"2004-09-08T03:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2004\/09\/07\/beyond-reason.html"},"modified":"2004-09-07T20:29:47","modified_gmt":"2004-09-08T03:29:47","slug":"beyond_reason","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/09\/07\/beyond_reason.html","title":{"rendered":"Beyond reason"},"content":{"rendered":"

Shame on Cheney for intimating that a Kerry victory is more likely to draw further terrorist attacks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen. John Kerry, saying that if the nation makes the wrong choice on Election Day it faces the threat of another terrorist attack.
\n“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,” Cheney told about 350 supporters at a town-hall meeting in this Iowa city.
\nIf Kerry were elected, Cheney said the nation risks falling back into a “pre-9\/11 mind-set” that terrorist attacks are criminal acts that require a reactive approach. Instead, he said Bush’s offensive approach works to root out terrorists where they plan and train, and pressure countries that harbor terrorists.<\/p>\n

One can argue for or against the reasoning — just as one can argue for or against the proposition that a vote for Bush is a vote to continue boosting terrorist group membership which argument has also been made. But while it seems a reasonable (if both inflammatory and debatable) argument, it’s probably not best made by either the presidential candidates or their veep candidates. It smacks too much of questioning your opponent’s patriotism, an appeal to emotion, arguing from authority.<\/p>\n

Veeps are supposed to be the “attack dogs” in campaigns, but this seems a bit too low for my taste. And, to prove at least the former point:<\/p>\n

Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards issued a statement, saying, “Dick Cheney’s scare tactics crossed the line today, showing once again that he and George Bush will do anything and say anything to save their jobs. Protecting America from vicious terrorists is not a Democratic or Republican issue and Dick Cheney and George Bush should know that.”
\nEdwards added that he and Kerry “will keep American safe, and we will not divide the American people to do it.”<\/p>\n

On the bright side of all this? Eight weeks! W00t!<\/em><\/p>\n

UPDATE: Michael Totten concurs<\/a>. Again, the argument that Cheney uses to explain his assertion is certainly worth debating, but the implication is that, if Dubya is reelected, we’ll be safe from terrorism — and that if a terror attack does occur, it’s the fault of whomever is in the White House, while, in reality, it’s the fault of the attacker — attackers who have shown that “reason” has little basis for their attacks.<\/p>\n

UPDATE: Taken in context — which means running the two paragraphs separated in the AP story above into the single paragraph given in the speech — it’s a lot less inflammatory (still debatable, but not the over-the-top excerpt as given). More in the comments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Shame on Cheney for intimating that a Kerry victory is more likely to draw further terrorist attacks. Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday warned Americans about voting for Democratic Sen….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,10,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6407","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-2004","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-homeland-security"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5879,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/07\/06\/kerry_on.html","url_meta":{"origin":6407,"position":0},"title":"Kerry On","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Jul-04 6:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"Evidently, John Kerry has chosen John Edwards to be his running mate for the fall. 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