crowdpleasers, heartwinners, & wet mops

john mccain's declaration of readiness to hound bin laden to the gates of hell undoubtedly stirred some blood.

it sounded spontaneous but was almost certainly planned.

it's meant as fiery rhetoric, the kind of imagery speechwriters come up with when their boss gets criticized for lack of passion.

then the employer just has to watch for an opportunity to gaze into a camera, shift into stern stuff mode, and utter the rehearsed metaphor.

that would be fine if the objective were to win an academic debate, but with life at stake in a fight against terrorism we have to deal with potentially serious consequences. unfortunately, consequences are the last thing folk think about when they allow emotion to decide their votes.

the "war" on terror is not a war but a hunt. the two share similarities but are far from identical.

one likeness is that the prey seeks to kill. in an ideal world no one would hunt tigers, but one that became a maneater would have to get taken out of circulation.

i'm not trying to dehumanize terrorists. their humanity gives them advantages rogue tigers don't have. it also means they make tracks tigers don't make.

one of the most interesting things i've heard said about combatting terrorism is that the fight should be sensitive and nuanced. because john kerry said it in 2004, it got ridiculed to death by the gop noise machine. kerry apparently lacked sufficient intestinal fortitude to defend and elaborate the idea till voters knew what he meant. i imagine a lot of useful concepts get lost that way, while testicular rhetoric maintains it's slippery grip on the political gearshift.

unfortunately, john mccain's ballsy words won't win him the chance to fulfil his resolution: we've moved the gates of hell to baghdad.