Mugger: Hobgoblins Galore

It's nearly a miracle, at least to those who remember 9/11, that terrorists haven't attacked the United States again. Maybe it's just arbitrary luck, incompetence on the part of the fanatics whose aim is to destroy this country, or, contrary to the opinions of Beltway "thinkers," President Bush's administration has been effective in thwarting another man-made catastrophe. Perhaps a combination of all three.

Nevertheless, in the space of two days, The New York Times' Bob Herbert (May 15) and The Washington Post's Eugene Robinson (May 16) wrote columns denouncing Bush for keeping Americans, as Herbert writes, in a "perpetual state of fear." This national security expert claims the "Bush crowd? hijacked" the 2000 election-in fairness, had Al Gore won in the courts, conservatives would most likely make similar claims-and says the President is devising "a road map to totalitarianism." Never mind that Bush's popularity has never been lower, or that the midterm elections could, God help us, bring in a Democratic Congress, or that two years from now another president will be elected. I'm just surprised Herbert didn't make a crack about Bush needing help to spell the word cartographer.

According to Herbert, because of NSA wiretaps and collection of phone records, the United States is starting to resemble Germany in the early 1930s. "Mr. Bush wants ordinary Americans," which excludes the media, naturally, to remain "so terrified?that they will not object to the steady erosion of their rights and liberties, and they will not notice the many ways in which their fear is being manipulated to feed an unconscionable expansion of presidential power."

Like many fellow citizens I am nervous about another devastating attack on this soil, whether it's from al-Qaeda, Iran or homegrown Minutemen who appear determined to take out their hostilities and insecurities on immigrants, legal or illegal. But to read Herbert and Robinson-who says, "[I]t's unnerving to see the country so unnerved"-you'd think the entire country is stockpiling canned food, building bomb shelters and refusing to lead lives that aren't consumed by politics. Even Democrats, and some Republicans, who have no patience for Bush and his "crowd," in Herbert's words, "which gets together each morning to participate in a highly secret ritual of formalized ineptitude," are not uniformly numbing their fear with whiskey, anti-depressants or mild-altering drugs. At least no more than in previous decades. It's a rare person who glides through life without any fear or anxiety.

Currently, I'm a lot more nervous about online hackers trying to steal my bank and credit card information than the government collecting logs of the phone calls I make to family and friends. I'm more concerned about the everyday crime that occurs in the urban environment of Baltimore, thinking of my wife being assaulted, the kids molested or kidnapped or a drunk driver ramming into our car on the highway. I can't stand the misrepresentation and bias of the elite media, but that's a mere annoyance compared to real-life hobgoblins. Choose your poison: Almost everyone is less scared about terrorism, while recognizing its possibility, than something that affects his or her daily lives.

It doesn't matter if the fear is rational or not. Take the current gas prices: As of this writing, the tab hovers around $3/gallon, which in relative terms is low, not only in comparison to Europe, but to the dollar-adjusted 1970s. Any number of Yankees fans fret more about Randy Johnson's pitching meltdown and the team's injuries than a repeat of 9/11. Others, primarily those immersed in the financial sector, fear the rise of Eliot Spitzer, New York's all-but-certain next governor, continuing his war on big and small business in hopes that one day he'll land in the White House.

The editorial board of The New York Times is scared silly of so much-Bush, declining advertising revenues, not enough Pulitzer Prizes, criticism from the guys and gals who write for Gawker, Rupert Murdoch, repeal of the estate tax, escalating prices for second homes on Long Island or Westchester Co., an alleged sour economy (never mind that the national unemployment rate is below five percent), Sen. John McCain's odds of defeating Hillary Clinton in '08 and the content of videogames.

Last week, the paper revealed that it's also afraid of Wal-Mart. The Arkansas-based retail behemoth, until recently dismissed as a "flyover" bastion of cheap prices and no-frills décor, announced it will enter the market of "organic" food. Judging by the paper's May 14 editorial, I'd wager that Gail Collins and her cohorts are more spooked about Wal-Mart's plan than even the clip-joint chain known as Whole Foods.

"People who think seriously about food," the edit reads, "have come to realize that 'local' is at least as important a word as 'organic.' The only thing local about Wal-Mart is its shoppers. For 'Wal-Mart' and 'organic' to make sense in the same sentence, the company will have to commit itself to protecting the Agriculture Department standard that give 'organic' meaning. Otherwise, it will become just another shill word, like 'new' or 'improved.'"

A "shill" word, maybe, like "ordinary" or "incurious" that the Times uses to describe people they regard as inferior. I think Collins and her boss Arthur Sulzberger Jr. must now be afraid of former Sen. George McGovern. The liberal lion, oh wait, that's Teddy Kennedy, wrote an op-ed for the May 22 Los Angeles Times that was critical of labor union leaders who live in another era when demanding concessions from huge companies was as easy as Time magazine-that muckraking magazine which this week got really gutsy with a cover story on the Dixie Chicks-winning awards from its media fraternity buddies.

McGovern wrote: "The current frenzy over Wal-Mart is instructive. Its size is unprecedented. Yet for all its billions in profit, it still amounts to less than four cents on the dollar. Raise the cost of employing people, and the company will eliminate jobs. Its business model only works on low prices, which require low labor costs. Whether that's fair or not [of course it is; it's called competition] is a debate for another time. It is instructive, however, that consumers continue to enjoy these low prices and that thousands of applicants continue to apply for those jobs."

The Times' Paul Krugman fears Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman. Borrowing the script of The Daily Kos, the paper's revered economist/social scientist blasted Lieberman on May 22 for agreeing too often with Bush, especially on Iraq, and clearly hopes that challenger Ned Lamont will defeat Gore's 2000 running mate in that state's upcoming Democratic primary. He says, "The nation, which rallied around Mr. Bush after 9/11 simply because he was there, has moved on-and it has left Mr. Lieberman behind." I doubt supporters of Lieberman's courageous defense of Israel have "moved on," but maybe Krugman believes that America's steadfast ally isn't all that important.