Voting Terrorism

Let's finally call the Bush Administration out for what it is: An authoritarian state.

It's simple. If you disagree, you are silenced. Paul O'Neill spoke out against the administration's policies and was swept out the door. Voters in Florida exercised their right to vote and were quietly brushed aside by Jeb Bush and Republican voting scandals. Now that the country is on to their tricks, they've resorted to other tactics.

When you're wrong, just ignore the facts and shout down the competition, particularly if they're wimpy like the Democrats have been the last six years. Lately, however, a strange occurrence has started within the Democratic Party. It seems that some of them have... grown spines.

"They are not Swift boating us on security," said Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader in the House.

Seeking to counter White House efforts to turn the reported terrorist plot in Britain to Republican advantage, Democrats are using the arrests of the suspects to try to show Americans how the war in Iraq has fueled Islamic radicalism and distracted Mr. Bush and the Republican Congress from shoring up security at home. They say they intend to drive that message home as the nation observes the coming anniversaries of Hurricane Katrina and the Sept. 11 attacks.
But they are not waiting. A video Monday on the Web site of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee showed footage of Osama bin Laden, referred to an increase in terror attacks, highlighted illegal immigration and pointed out the nuclear aspirations of Iran and North Korea.

"Feel safer?" it concludes. "Vote for change."

In another example, Representative Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democrat running for the Senate in Tennessee, issued a statement Monday noting that the administration shut down a C.I.A. unit dedicated to pursuing Mr. bin Laden. The administration has said that the C.I.A. shut down the unit as part of a restructuring of its counterterrorism division and that the move did not diminish its focus on Al Qaeda and its leaders.

"The president told us that the British attacks are a stark reminder that the nation is at war with Islamic fascists who will use any means to destroy those of us who love freedom,'' Mr. Ford said, "yet his administration has dismantled the very infrastructure that is responsible for catching those terrorists."

In many foreign countries, citizens are either kept entirely from voting, or pressured, either politically or forcefully, into voting for a given party. Do not let them disenfranchize voters again. We need to get out there and vote, both in the upcoming midterm elections, and in Nov. '08. Let's tell the Republicans that we don't want our country to work like this, and remind the Democrats that we're behind them!