Focus, dammit, focus

AWOL documents. The SWILLs (SWIft Boat Lying Liars). The raking of the muck of petty scandal after petty scandal. I'm a little tired of it. And I've participated in it myself. But it's a distraction, and it isn't doing much to help beat Bush. The focus should be on domestic and foreign affairs, both of which Bush has handled badly or hasn't handled at all.

Kerry has done a fair job in the last few days of focusing on that stuff, and he's been smart to tie the Iraqi debacle to domestic issues by pointing out the disaster that it is AND how its costs are negatively impacting America's domestic needs. But it doesn't seem sustained. Crap keeps rising to distract attention from it.

You know what the big news SHOULD be? That Bin Laden's top lieutenant just released a video mocking the efforts of the United States - THREE YEARS after 9/11.

Three years. And the guys who staged the attack on the United States are STILL AT LARGE. They're making videos and releasing them to the media, so, NO, they aren't holed up in a cave somewhere.

That's how big of a failure Bush has been.

While the nation has spent time, money and LIVES wondering when the Iraqis were going to start loving us for occupying their country, the people who attacked us are walking around scot free, making videos mocking our efforts two days before the actual anniversary of the attack.

And what has Bush done about the threat? INCREASED it. James Fallows in the October Atlantic writes that "It is hard to find a counterterrorism specialist who thinks that the Iraq War has reduced rather than increased the threat to the United States."

Terrorists attacked Australia two days ago. They attacked Russia last week. But George W. Bush is trying to hinge his campaign on the transparent falsehood that his actions have increased our safety.

His response to 9/11 has not only NOT been good - it hasn't even been acceptable. It's hard to imagine one more thoroughly incompetent. It's hard to imagine any opportunity in the history of the United States that has EVER been more thoroughly squandered.

John Kerry, the DNC and the whole pack of them should stuff Bush's bullshit right back down his throat. If they must focus on 35 years ago (and it probably isn't a good idea to completely ignore it, since it HAS been turned into an issue), they should do so in a way that ties it to the present.

"George Bush's failure to finish the job in the National Guard is part of Bush's pattern: he never finishes the job. He didn't finish it in Afghanistan, and the video of Ayman al-Zawahiri proves it."

Is that so hard?