People are tire of being played

Carmel Zucker for The New York Times
“We may need a change,” said Shannon Abote,
who said she was a lifelong Republican.

In Unpredictable District, Some Say Bush Is Politicizing Terrorism

By CARL HULSE
Published: September 12, 2006

ARVADA, Colo., Sept. 11 — Leaving services Sunday morning at Faith Bible Chapel, an evangelical megachurch, Jim McBride, a pilot who served in Vietnam, said he was not happy with President Bush’s handling of Iraq. And he displayed little inclination to rethink his position despite the White House’s new push to focus this year’s Congressional elections on which party will keep the nation safer.

Blaine Engdahl said he still supported the president, saying he had learned from his mistakes.

“I do have a bit of mistrust,” said Mr. McBride, who said that he twice voted for Mr. Bush but that he is now disappointed — a sentiment he said is shared by many in his Bible study group. “The whole thing about W.M.D. and that Iraq is somehow tied to 9/11, I just don’t believe it.”

Mr. Bush has plenty of supporters in this Denver suburb and the surrounding cities, an evenly divided swing district that is a bellwether in the battle for control of the House. But interviews over the last three days here found Republicans, Democrats and independents all expressing degrees of skepticism about Mr. Bush’s motives in delivering a set of high-profile speeches on terrorism and the war in Iraq two months before Election Day.

While it is too early to know whether the White House will succeed in winning over enough voters to make a difference in what is shaping up as a tight race, the interviews suggested that Mr. Bush’s newest efforts to cast his party as better suited than Democrats to defend the country had yet to overcome concern and anger among many voters about Iraq and a more generalized sense of discontent with the administration.

“I have been a Republican all my life, but we have just gotten to the point where we may need a change,” said Shannon Abote, an Arvada resident who was stopping at Starbucks for a coffee on Monday morning.

Many residents said they were aware only in general terms of Mr. Bush’s recent speeches and his decision to bring high-level terrorism suspects to trial before military tribunals. They acknowledged that the terrorist threat often seemed distant, far removed from their busy lives in the shelter of the Rocky Mountains. Fewer than 20 people turned out Monday morning outside the Elks Club in Arvada to mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Living in the central part of the country has probably kept terrorism from the forefront of our minds,” said Peter Strecker as he and his wife, Robin, strolled through downtown Golden on Saturday with their 13-month-old daughter, Paige, after a sudden downpour.

Still, even strong Bush supporters said they doubted the presidential drumbeat on terrorism would alter the political landscape here. “I think people already have their minds made up,” said Michael Mason, an engineer and Golden native. “The whole thing could end tomorrow, and they would still hate his guts. The damage has been done.”

The random interviews with dozens of residents across the Seventh Congressional District were not scientific. But they do suggest that Mr. Bush’s public standing could be problematic for the Republican candidate in the race for the open House seat, Rick O’Donnell, and that the Republican push on terrorism will not necessarily pack the same political punch it did in 2002 and 2004.

“I think it is the only card they have got,” said Floyd Ciruli, a longtime Denver pollster, referring to the national Republican focus on terrorism. “Will it make a difference in Colorado? Absolutely not.”

People are tired of being played. Bush sounded ridiculous last night, with his "we must stop them in the streets of Baghdad" nonsense. What a desperate, foolish thing to say.

And now Rove wants to emotionally blackmail America with 9/11 families? So what? There are Iraq War families. They beat the shit out of Cindy Sheehan. They can't beat all of them. People like to forget that the Madhi Army, not Sunni guerrillas, killed Casey Sheehan. Which means the people we were suppoesed to be working with hate us as much as the people we're fighting.

Bush uses fear because he's been afraid most of his life, it's what he understands. But not all of us are cowards, and we get sick of being scared. But then, Bush fears Al Qaeda less than a Congress which does its job. And that, he should be afraid of.