Why George Bush and Karl Rover Remind Me of Orson Welles' Great 1939 Halloween Scare

Yesterday was the anniversary of the great 1939 radio broadcast planned and written by Orson Wells which was designed to be great radio theatre and instead, scared so many shitless.

Late last night, while I started the celebrated fourth week of my latest lung infection, it occurred to me how much Karl Rove's orchestrated right-wing Republican organization, with George W. Bush as no more than titular head, has been depending on just the kind of naive scared fear factor in the whole American public (and perhaps well into the world with our bravado) since September 11th, 2001.

Orson Wells, however, really did not intend to cause suicides and homicides and fear of everything different (in fact, Wells went on to warn us of many evils, including a Hearst run American in which media companies can jerry rig wars for circulation boost (substitute Rudolph Murdoch and Rev. Moon today)). However, I'd argue that Mr. Rove and Mr. Bush - AND Mr. Cheney - certainly wanted to see deaths. They have crafted a situation where Americans can and should turn on Americans. The corollary to Wells' Martians is "al Qaeda" (which what we call al Qaeda has never called itself).

Go back and look at what is known of that 1939 radio broadcast. Then tell me there aren't more than a couple of similarities in the right wing's al Qaeda terror fear/post 9-11 apocalypse playbook.