>>Do you suppose their fall-back plans include the ultimate October Surprise
>>(as in, "Surprise! You won't have to bother to go the polls next
>>month...")? --CGE
>
>I've been saying this since October 2001. And I usually get dismissed as a
>paranoid crank but I'd still bet money on it, August-September though,
>just to give that 'Nuremburg 1936' feel to the Repug convention.
Count me in. These guys are mendacious, vicious, malevolent fuXors. It's not that I think they'll manufacture an attack like 911. Rather, they'll do something to instigate one or push some group over the edge. Or just pull all the right levers to get something awful to happen, say, during the convention. Like a horrible confrontation with protestors.
Not enough to derail an election, just enough to ensure that Shrub gets the boost in numbers he needs.
Alternatively, their other option is to ensure that someone starts a smear campaign against Shrub. Make it appear to be an unfair attack on him, and they'll rally around him. Oh, the poor baby, so unfairly attacked by the Hate America Firsters. Rally Round the Presdinet.
Who knows? I just wouldn't put it past them.
A couple of years after I'd been introduced to sociology, I went back to visit the prof who'd introduced me to some eye-opening books that gave me a more structuralist view of the world. I said something like: One of the great things I learned in your class is that things aren't happening because people sit around and plan them."
He interrupted and said, "Yes, but sometimes they do sit around and plan things." He then Handed me Cohen and Rogers _ON Democracy_ and said, "you need a little more history."
Kelley