In recent weeks we have seen the emergence of two seemingly unrelated lines of attack against Senator Obama. One false rumor claims that he is Muslim (which, by the by, shouldn't matter) and tries to link him to groups like Hamas and al-Qaeda. The other falsely tries to define him as a leftist terrorist sympathizer. While these two, seemingly distinct, lines of attack are written off by most as products of the lunatic fringe, I beg to differ. Here's why.
Shortly after 9/11, the crowd in the Bush Administration decided the legitimate US intelligence community was made up of liberal idiots and took it upon themselves to take corrective action. The result? A complete rewrite of the history of terrorism. The end product? Judeo-Christian/Conservative world good, Islamic/Liberal world bad.
How could something like this happen?
The Bush Administration began by creating a body of terrorism data that would support its world view. In other words, the correct, Bush Administration-approved answer came first, the outsourced, multi-million dollar custom-designed data to support said conclusion came second.
And thus, after liberating itself from over 90% of the available body of terrorist incidents pulled together by the U.S. government prior to the Bush Administration (it's all a matter of definition, don't you know?), what little remained was divided up ideologically by the Bush league into Left (anarchist, anti-globalization, communist/socialist, environmental, left), Right (right-wing conservative, right-wing reactionary, racist), Other (a mechanism for playing with statistics), Religious (three guesses which religion gets top billing), and Nationalist/Separatist (mostly ungrateful folk who object to our exploitation of their natural resources).
The result?
According to this piece of high-priced fiction, the most dangerous ideology in the world was that of the radical left (37% of all terrorist groups and 38% of all terrorist incidents worldwide, 1968 to Present), closely followed by radical religious groups (22% of all terrorist groups and 20% of all terrorist incidents worldwide, 1968-Present).
And the least dangerous?
Funny you should ask about that. According to the Bush Administration's pet database, the least dangerous ideology in the world is that of the radical right. And no, I am not joking. The ideological realm that spawned Hitler, that provided the rationalization for the murder of civil rights activists, liberal politicians, abortion clinic providers, environmentalists, the Oklahoma City bombing, and thousands of hate crimes was credited with having produced only 8% of all terrorist groups and 1% of all terrorist incidents (1968-Present) worldwide.
In other words, the the Bush Administration, with the stroke of a pen (or, more correctly, a computer) did what the Southern Poverty Law Center hasn't been able to do in decades: It got the number of terrorist incidents carried out by the KKK down to zero.
Criminal?
Not according to the GOP and the McCain/Palin camp. They continue to claim that the Bush Administration is 100% patriotic and pro-National Security. (Perhaps the true nature of the Bush Administration, like torture and terrorism, all depends upon one's definition?)
Which brings us back to those rumors and the real nature of the fight being waged against Senator Obama and the Democrats in 2008.
Based on the data cited above, if you combine the threat of the radical left as defined by the Bush Administration (which the McCain camp links to Senator Obama) with the threat of radical religious groups as defined by the same sector (Senator Obama as a Muslim), you get the ultimate threat as defined by the Bush camp circa 2002. Just add a Middle East dictator, a vile of anthrax, and a U.N. speech and, presto, change-o, we're headed into Baghdad (or is that Tehran, I forget).
Coincidence? I think not.
To put it another way, it is highly improbable that these two anti-Obama myths, so perfectly in step with the Bush Administration's own world view, were generated independently of one another, let alone produced by the lunatic fringe. Add into the mix the GOP's fondness for Karl-Rove-style hate politics and it nearly impossible not to conclude that the origin of this twin-pronged anti-Obama campaign is to be found within the ranks of the GOP itself.
So what's the bottom line?
While I would reject any suggestion that we should drop to this level ourselves, I do believe it is imperative that we stop giving the Bush/McCain/Palin camp the benefit of a doubt when their carefully scripted, well rehearsed statements "accidentally" generate death threats or side with them when they rail against a hero of the Civil Rights movement for daring to call them on the carpet for their grotesque behavior. We should stop second guessing our gut instincts that something dangerous is in the air. We are not, I repeat NOT, imagining things. Not even a little bit.