False Alarms

October 10, 2005

I don't know about you but I found news coverage of last week's "attack" on the New York subway annoying. It must be a sign of how jaded we are that the threat of mortal peril provokes irritation.(Apparently, a lot of New Yorkers felt the same way--commuter traffic was reportedly unaffected.) Maybe it's the endless series of red, yellow, and orange alerts that have a numbing effect. Maybe it's the government's inability to deal with real disasters of the natural kind, coupled with these dire warnings: "Be afraid, be very afraid--but don't expect an evacuation plan or anything." Watching CNN coverage of the men in hazmat suits and the "breaking news" bulletins about the foamy green liquid they found in a subway station, and then, more breaking news, it was nothing . . . it all seemed like cynical wag the dogism.

Everyone knows the Bush Administration is in trouble. Bush's first big chance to change the subject from his disastrous response to the disaster on the Gulf Coast--naming a new Supreme Court Justice--ended up making things worse for him. The mild-mannered White House counsel turns out to be more controversial than Robert Bork, not because she's a radical ideologue, but because she's not ideological enough for the Republican base, not experienced enough for people who actually care about putting competent justices on the court, and, worst of all, part of the pattern of crony appointments that got Bush in hot water in New Orleans.

So then the President gave his "major speech" on--what else?-- terrorism. Why not? "You're all going to die" worked well enough in the last election. But maybe not forever. There may be such a thing as terror fatigue. People become resentful when they're repeatedly subjected to scare tactics. Remember the boy who cried wolf? I think his name was George.