There must be an election coming up

On this, the eve of the fifth anniversary of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we'd like to pause to remind you how important it is to the Bush administration and the Republican Party that you remain scared shitless.

To that end, citizens in the Pacific Northwest and, thanks to the wires, countless others around the country were treated to this steamy pile this morning:

It could be a bomb stuffed in a car or truck or strapped around the waist of a suicide bomber. It could be a small boat filled with explosives approaching, like the one that attacked the guided-missile destroyer USS Cole in Yemen six years ago. Or it could be a small plane packed with explosives diving out of the sky.

Or terrorists might simply hijack one of Washington state's jumbo ferries with 2,500 people on board and aim it at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, which overhauls nuclear aircraft carriers and Trident nuclear submarines.

Although security has improved dramatically since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the ferries plying the waters of Puget Sound remain vulnerable, and intelligence suggests that terrorists are conducting surveillance and the ferries could be targets.

Scary? You bet. Alarming? Sure is. Bullshit? Oh yeah.

The opening paragraphs are designed to scare the shit out of you, and do a pretty good job. You have to hang in until the 11th paragraph to get to this little nugget:

"We do not posses any specific or credible information indicating any threat to the Washington state ferry system," said Kirk Whitworth, of the Homeland Security Department.

Hmmm, in a story about the threat to the Puget Sound ferry system, that seems like a fairly important piece of information.

But a good fear campaign isn't going to be derailed by something as insignificant as facts. And neither is this story. It goes on to describe the number of people who ride the ferries and are at risk. Or would be. If there were any credible reason to believe a threat to the ferry system exists. Which there isn't. No matter, just follow that up with this quote:

"The worst-case scenario is a large truck bomb," Washington State Patrol Lt. Travis Matheson said. But he said attacks could come from the air, the sea or a passenger with a homemade bomb. "The ferries are considered very high risk and they are difficult to protect."

and you're sure to have passengers eyeing each other suspiciously and wasting officers' time with calls about "suspicious activity."

Suspicious activity sometimes might involve a tourist taking pictures or asking out-of-the-ordinary questions, but the incidents that attracted attention from the FBI and other investigators "involved behavior out of the mainstream for either tourists or commuters," Turner said. He wouldn't elaborate.

I bet pissing over the side of the ferry would qualify as "behavior out of the mainstream for either tourists or commuters." That probably doesn't happen often, but tourists photographing picturesque Puget Sound during a ferry ride probably happens every couple of seconds. So we might as well fear it.

With the election just a few weeks away, I suspect we can expect a 2004-style rise in the terror alert level, more alarmist bullshit like this article and, of course, an October Surprise that'll probably keep the Bushies laughing at the country club for years.