A hypothetical : If a Democrat is elected and a terrorist attack happens

[kentuck]

exactly 8 months later, who is to blame? Would it be the fault of George W Bush, who would no longer be pResident - but who did not do enough to protect our nation, or would it be the responsibility of the new President Kerry? Most folks would say that the buck stops with the person in charge? How would this be rationalized by the Repubs so that in the very same circumstance, the buck would stop with the Democratic President? And the media would no doubt assist them in their efforts.

[Bolo Boffin]

1. The people to blame will be...

...the people who didn't do their job and thus allowed the attack to happen.

[Bluzmann57]

2. If an attack happens on Kerry's watch

then Kerry should shoulder the blame. Especially now that we know we are just as vulnerable as anyone else in the world. Now why the hell doesn't busco use that logic? Because they're all a bunch of useless so and so's. At least thats the answer I come up with.

[girl gone mad]

3. Bush dropped the ball.

He took a month long vacation just before 9/11. His administration decided that they hated Clinton so much they would do the opposite of whatever he said, and that included Clinton's advice to make al Qaeda the top priority.

If the Kerry administration acted in a similar manner, ignoring threats and focusing on cold war era security concerns, then yes I would want them held accountable.

[kanrok]

4. Of course it would be the fault of the Dem president!

Either that or Clenis did it. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a Dem president would have gotten raked over the coals from 9-11 forward. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that a repug-controlled Congress would hound a Dem to death. Impeachment would be the least of his or her worries.

[tom_paine]

5. You know as well as I do what it would be

George Orwell could tell ya' if he was still alive.

1) They would blame Kerry.

2) They would lie, obfuscate, tell quarter-truths wrapped in lies, and Corporate Pravda will allow them to get away with it scot-free, with few exceptions seen by almost none.

3) With no historical referent, absolute Orwellian hypocrisy is possible here. It willmatter NOTHING how Bush was treated or what their defense was (Blame Clinton) because history is fluid and rewritten every day by Bushevik Pravda.

Sorry, that's how I see it and how it would very likely be.

[kentuck]

8. Very true, tom_paine. Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds...

To them, history is fluid and must be rewritten constantly in order to match their propaganda and their definitions of reality. Well said!

[AndyP]

6. I don't see this as that far out of a possibility

if Bush thinks that he is going to get rid of EVERY terrorist he's got another thing comming. We produce more terrorists every day, with every economic policy. So I could see the possibility of some of these terrorists getting in and attacking, but if it happened I hope Kerry would man up and figure out what went wrong instead of pinning it on someone else.

[Career Prole]

7. It would be the fault of the ass

who pissed away a colossal surplus on his best buddies. A huge chunk of cash which could have gone a long way to protecting us from terrorist attacks. We shall no doubt do our level best with the tools we have remaining to us (absent hard cash unfortunately) and thoroughly document the entire procedure. Transparency is no longer an option...it's a requirement.

[prodigal_green]

9. The president, no matter who it is

Is ultimately responsible for the safety of the nation. Having said that, I trust that Kerry would manage to work in a productive way with other countries and probably nail whomever did it in short order.

Let's hope it doesn't happen, but it is pretty likely.

[teryang]

10. The evasion of responsibility by the lihop junta

...is so successful that your hypothetical question even has to be asked. Nobody remembers "the buck stops here." These repuke neo-fascist militarists are like children at play. "It's not my fault. It's your fault!"

Maybe the "foreign and national security" professionals should take responsibility for their gross miscalculations, corruption, and derelictions of duty.

Approximately 3000 civilians killed on 911. 4000 dead and wounded soldiers in Iraq and two unsuccessful wars. Untold thousands of civilian causalties in Iraq and Afghanistan. 150 billion dollars wasted. Mission a fraud in Iraq and mission not accomplished in Afghanistan. These are the corporate keystone cops. They know how to enrich contractors, bribe despots and topple governments. They don't know how to do anything else.

[rinsd]

11. It's a tough one....

If Kerry campaigns that he will make us safer and an attack happens on US soil, he has much less political cover than Bush did.

[CBHagman]

12. The public might rally to the side of the president, but the GOP....

... and talk radio and the Murdoch trollops of this world would fall all over themselves blaming the Democratic president.

Repeat their mantras after me:

Ronald Reagan is a living saint and all he did was good.

All good comes from Bush, all evil from the liberals.

Republicans are tough. Democrats are weak.

More missile defense is going to save us from damn near everything, as will tax cuts.

If only we'd get rid of the inheritance tax, everything would be lovely.

We've seen the GOP drill for decades and know how this works. There would be no mass GOP rallying to the president, although a few independent types might do so.

Besides, if a GOP Congress remains and a Democratic president is elected, the Republicans are going to sulk like teenagers on family car trip. You know they will.

We'd better hope Tom DeLay is in an orange jumpsuit before long (finally a real possibility!) so that we don't have to deal with his hissy fits.

[capriccio]

13. Nightmare scenario

This raises a frightening thought: if Gore was serving as president on 9/11, the 2000 election may very well have been the last ever for the Democratic Party

Okay, before you light your torches, folks, let me say that the continuity between Clinton and Gore, the Clinton team's success in diffusing the terrorist attack on LAX, and the subordination of ideology to competency in a Gore Administration all may have led to a pre-emptive strike against Al-Qaida...but for the sake of discussion let's just say not. Let's just say the bureaucratic screw-ups and institutional rivalries that existed would've opened the door to the terrorists regardless of which party was in charge. You put that against OBL's activities through the Clinton years and the GOP's taste for the jugular, and you might fairly say that the Supreme Court saved the Democratic Party by giving the election to Bush.

[kentuck]

14. Interesting.....

and not too far out of the realms of possibilities...