McCain adviser Charles Black raised some eyebrows in a Fortune interview:
A top adviser to Sen. John McCain said that a terrorist attack in the United States would be a political benefit to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a comment that was immediately disputed by the candidate and denounced by his Democratic rival.
Charles R. Black Jr., one of McCain’s most senior political advisers, said in an interview with Fortune magazine that a fresh terrorist attack “certainly would be a big advantage to him.” He also said that the December assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, while “unfortunate,” helped McCain win the Republican primary by focusing attention on national security.
This was quite the story yesterday, with the media and bloggers talking about it and the Obama campaign, and while it goes without saying that it is obnoxious, offensive, and more of the Rovian fear-mongering that has been of dwindling efficacy since 2002, I guess my only real remark on the issue is why anyone is surprised or why people are considering it a gaffe. We know this is what they think, and this is not the first time someone has said something like this. I remember multiple instances in which some Republican made some iteration of the statement, and off the top of my head I can give you Rick Santorum in an interview with Hugh Hewitt:
You know, I’ve talked to all three of the major candidates, that I think will be the major candidates, and that’s Giuliani, Romney and Thompson. I think those will be the three major candidates when we head into the final analysis. And I think all of them understand the issue very, very well, they understand particularly the importance of Iran, and confronting Iran in the Middle East as an absolute lynchpin for our success in that region, and I think they are committed to that. And while it may not be a popular thing to talk about right now, and I know public sentiment is against it, they understand the importance of the national security of this country, and they also understand that between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public’s going to have a very different view of this war, and it will be because, I think, of some unfortunate events, that like we’re seeing unfold in the UK. But I think the American public’s going to have a very different view, and part of it will be the education that these three men will be imparting on the American public during the course of this campaign.
What Black said is nothing new- it is just more of the same, and I am sure we can dig up others who have made similar comments. It may have been more blunt, and I guess the surprising aspect is that someone so close to the McCain campaign would be that outspoken about the issue, but it is what they think and has been part of their strategy all along (and, I might add, the Obama campaign is aware of the GOP strategy and is meeting it head on- that is why he is addressing McCain head on, pointing out the number of security failures of the Bush administration). But other than that, I don’t see what the big deal is- the Republicans have been running on a campaign of fear since 9/11, and if McCain wins, expect him to lead using the principle heretofore to be known as the Rule of the Damp Trouser for four more years.
Fear. It is really all they have left.
PaulB
Democrat: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
Republican: “We have nothing to offer but fear itself.”
Chris Johnson
The question is not whether they could take advantage of something happening, but whether they could manufacture something that happens- either directly or indirectly through some rogue attack on a Middle East country.
I’m not quite a 9/11 truther- I think it’s possibly more likely that they had some idea something was going to happen but either ignored it or hoped it would be a useful thing, not knowing how spectacular the attack would be.
But even without being a 9/11 truther, I don’t think there’s anything unusual about asking these questions when you look at what subsequently happened. “Who benefits”?
CFisher
No, it’s not surprising. It’s part of a sad mindset that seeks vindication from the unbelievers and doubters.
A certain set of pundits and far Righties fantasize about something big and terrible happening so they can puff out their chest and crow at us about how they were right and we were fools for not believing them and obeying their every dictate unconditionally.
I have no doubt that many Republicans would mourn such an event, but more than a few would revel in the chance to tell Democrats, Libertarians, and Independents, “I told you so.”
jake
If a person thinks terrorism will help him attain his goals, doesn’t that make him a terrorist?
4tehlulz
OH U! That only applies to Democrats.
Zifnab
Listen, I don’t want to pull out the old “Republicans are always wrong” card on this one, but given the political climate if we had a new terrorist attack on the eve of the Presidential Election, do we really believe that Americans would flock to the Republicans? I mean, really?
After 9/11 and the Afghanistan cluster fuck and the Iraq super cluster fuck and Katrina and the mortgage crisis and $4 / gallon gas and tainted food and “Bomb bomb Iran” war chants and no WMDs and Osama bin Laden still around somewhere maybe, people are really going to grab the lube and crawl back into bed with the GOP after yet another terrorist bombing on Bush’s watch?
I’m sorry, but I’m just not seeing it.
Just Some Fuckhead
Everyone is wrong on this one. A terrorist attack on America would be excellent news! For Hillary!!
Elvis Elvisberg
Just adding to the example in the post, a Philly op-ed writer pined for more attacks a few months back, which led, of course, to praise and promotion from Drudge, John Gibson, Glenn Beck, et al.
manne hussein malon
LOL
Damned at Random
And what if the attack is from some right-wing nutjob like McVeigh – how would that play out? The militia people have been pretty quiet with Dubya in office, but will some small group try to prevent an Obama presidency by renewed domestic terror? Does every form of terror play to McCain’s advantage? And will Dubya bomb Iran for providing support to neonazis?
Jeff
It’s working on my mother-in-law
4tehlulz
Don’t worry. The GOP will protect
the Christian fascists’our civil liberties if that happens.KCinDC
Part of the big deal is that, as Matt Yglesias points out, it’s not a good idea to put the responsibility for public safety and national security in the hands of people who think (correctly or not) that they’ll benefit from a terrorist attack.
binzinerator
Terrorism has been good business for the goopers. The last thing they wanted to do was to actually capture bin Laden. Bush/bin Laden and GOP/al Qaeda have been in symbiotic relationships. I don’t mean they are in cahoots with each other, just that they serve to extend each other’s power.
Another attack surely would be a ‘Thank you Baby Jayzus!’ moment for the goopers. Any idiot ought to have wanted Bush’s head on a pole after the incredible fuckup and blow-off of intelligence that made 9/11 possible. But most of this country cheered the fuckup who allowed it to happen as a hero.
The goopers are expecting no pain, no consequences, no accountability for another terror attack on their watch. They have a precedent, they have nothing to lose, and they are counting on frightening the stupids of this country — which sadly was a majority of the nation — into submission again.
I am still not confident the public would now see past the gooper bullshit and see things as they are — a terror attack as yet another failure of the Bushies, and the ultimate responsibility of GWB. I don’t want to go broke under-estimating the ability of GWB to shirk his responsibilities, or go broke over-estimating the intelligence of the American public.
By the way, Rule of the Damp Trouser was just too effin’ funny. No doubt those wingnuts who follow that principle continue to respond to it with the greatest of alacrity belong to the Perpetually Asinine Nincompoops and Twits Loyal Order of the Damp Trouser (PANT LODT).
Ed in NJ
Rick Santorum, as always, with his finger on the pulse of American politics.
jake
It all depends on whether the majority of people would buy a talking point that’s been floating around for a while, to whit: The hair-thin Democratic majority is the cause of all the country’s woes.
Or at least enough people + enough “pre-programmed” DieVote machines.
binzinerator
They have little reason to attack a government that is aligned with them. Bushier goopers: lawless, christianist, racist, anti-liberal, proto-fascist. The fascist militia people recognize the smell of fundamentalism, they hear the racist dogwhistles. They see their rhetoric of eliminationism transmitted into the mainstream.
They recognize the whiff of fascism as their own, diluted yes, but they know their own smell.
Why would they bomb the goverment? The Bush government is the best thing that’s ever happened to them.
IanY77
Just so we’re clear:
Attack on the US, good for the Republican Party.
No attack on the US, good for the Republican Party.
And the press eats that narrative up with a spoon.
rawshark
Didn’t Irving Kristol say the republican party is powerless without an emeny or something like that? Isn’t Newt running around saying we’ll lose a city if we elect someone who isn’t a republican.
I loved the internet in the nineties. So much black helicopter, coded road sign paranoia. Just wait until we have a black man in the White House. We ain’t seen nor heard nothing yet.
croatoan
We already had another terrorist attack: the anthrax attacks, which President Bush called “a second wave of terrorist attacks upon our country.”
Just Some Fuckhead
Margaret Carlson needs to be beat to death with the “other hand” she uses to prop up Republicans. She just told us that the equivalent to Charlie Black saying a terrorist attack will help McCain and Republicans is that…
.. wait for it..
“..Democrats often find themselves rooting for the economy to get bad..”
You’re liberal media hard at work.
Just Some Fuckhead
Your, even.
grumpy realist
I think the Shock and Horror about Black’s comment (arising from the Usual Suspects, of course) is that it was in all senses, a gaffe, meaning “what happens when a politician accidentally tells the truth.”
The neo-cons and similar really do wish and pray for another attack on this country to send the Great American Populace stampeding back into their arms. Witness Billy Kristol, Daniel Pipes, and the rest of that crowd. Their great dream is for yet another U.S. city to have a bomb/gas attack/whatever happen so they can say We Told You So…..