One of the things that I find absurd about this administration's PR team is their insistance on the use of Orwellian-like tactics as their trump card. I also find it absurd that people actually fall for it.
There has been a recent example of the Bush administration doing exactly this in their defense of the whole wiretapping incident. The PR campaign wasn't going exactly well for them, and a good majority of people thought that the Bush administration was wrong for not getting warrants.
And now comes the trump card: fear. The Bush campaign, attempting to boost its PR campaign with the wiretaps, decides to tell the country about a 2002 plot to destroy the US Bank Tower (or, as Bush referred it to by its old name to keep it in line with the rhetoric, the Liberty tower).
The terrorist plot that they foiled was so dangerous and imminent that they never even informed the mayor or the local city government. And then they never even had the courtesy of informing the mayor before announcing it on national tv.
This isn't to suggest that you can't use examples of when it was useful, but don't use one specific incident to drive an Orwellian-like fear feeling to get your point acrossed.
I know this will never happen, but I dream of there being a coherent argument, with facts and examples to back it up. This is the appropriate way to use the 2002 terrorist attack.
Instead, this administration uses it as a distraction from all of the other things. "We foiled 2002. Now let us do whatever we want, otherwise you'll get attacked again".
Neither Democrats nor Republicans, as well as any other party once they got into power, will really truly do that. I do like how all the Republican's say that the Democrats don't have a coherent National Security plan and is the party of big government, while the Republicans not only fail to coherently put together a compelling reason to have warrantless system, but also want expanded Presidential authority (aka big government, what they are against).
I think that its pathetic that the Democrats are so disorganzied that they will not be able to take advantage of this and use it to their advantage. I also think its not completely the political party's fault that politics is done with way.
A big part of the blame falls squarely on the electorate for allowing emotional responses like this to overtake their senses. Unfortunately, its all too common to have this happen. If it didn't work, political strategists wouldn't use it.
Anyway, enough of my long ass rant about different things. Its the system, and we're stuck with it.