Distraction and Deceit

BushCo. have become masters of misdirection. If some event threatens to spot the administration in a bad light you can be certain that The Department of Homeland Security or the FBI will issue some vague, nonspecific warning about possible terrorist attacks. Or perhaps they will leak the name of a CIA operative to a certain opinion writer. It seems there is no depth to which they will not sink in order to keep the public from seeing them as they really are, from seeing the man behind the curtain.

With the release of the final report from the 9/11 Commission today, they are already at their game:

By the time the 9/11 commission releases its final report today, President Bush will be well into a day of White House events designed to bolster his image as a defender of the homeland.

In the Oval Office this morning, Mr. Bush will sign a law giving police officers added authority to pack weapons while off duty. By midafternoon, Mr. Bush will have beaten a trail to a police training academy in Illinois, where he plans to deliver a speech on domestic security. The theatrics underscore the lengths to which the White House will go to protect what have been Mr. Bush's biggest political assets: his launching of the war on terrorism and his image of resoluteness. But the need to go to such lengths also suggests that the Bush team worries that the president's edge on national-security issues may be eroding.

But in this instance, their actions, far from looking like the underhanded distraction of an administration in the full flush of power, are looking rather "desperate," to borrow one of their favorite words. Rather than manufacturing a threat, or hyping an existing, low-level threat, aWol is left to talk to small groups of First Responders in some out of the way police academy. There are reasons they should be desperate:

The tightness of the race and diminished backing for Mr. Bush's handling of the war on terror underscore the danger the commission's final report poses for Mr. Bush, particularly if voters conclude the administration was negligent in handling the terror threat. Mr. Bush's leadership in the war on terror "is the underpinning of Bush's support right now," says Frank Luntz, a pollster who has worked with top Republicans in past elections. "If that underpinning comes apart, then so does his support."

NOTE: Speaking of distractions, don't forget the reports that BushCo. have pressured Pakistan to produce - "Dead or Alive" - a major al Qaeda figure during the first three days of next week's Democratic National Convention.