A Shot in the Arm

DICK CHENEY WENT to Ohio last week to warn that if John Kerry is elected president, terrorists with "deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us-biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind"-will vaporize us all. But the only thing that seemed radioactive at that moment was George W. Bush himself, who for three weeks had mysteriously not been to the buckeye state-where unemployment is still soaring-even though the polls were neck and neck. He finally did make a quick stop in Ohio on Friday.

The only explanation, pollster Stanley Greenberg told Sidney Blumenthal in the Guardian, is that "his numbers go down when he's there."

So cheerful Cheney went to Ohio instead to warn of Armageddon under a future Kerry administration, even though Iran, literally on the same day-and obviously under Bush's watch-had just test-fired a missile thought to be "nuclear capable." Was it any wonder that Bush, also in the same week, got the backing of the Iranians for his re-election bid?

"We haven't seen anything good from the Democrats," Hasan Rowhani, head of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, said on state television, in a slam that the Kerry campaign isn't likely to complain about. "We do not desire to see Democrats take over... We should not forget that most sanctions and economic pressures were imposed on Iran during the time of [former Democratic president Bill] Clinton. And we should not forget that during Bush's era-despite his hardline and baseless rhetoric against Iran-he didn't take, in practical terms, any dangerous action against Iran."

While Bush was busy locking up the Axis of Evil endorsements, our national security advisor, rather than staying in Washington to deal with the nuclear threat Iran is posing, was hitting the campaign trail. Cheney had the gall to say that it was Kerry who couldn't get his "mind around" the idea that terrorists might use WMDs, but it was Condoleezza Rice who's been out of sight and out of mind. At one of her appearances, in far off Downingtown, PA-where Rice had accepted a speaking gig and claimed it was just a coincidence that she was in a small town in a swing state in which her boss had also made an appearance-protestors showed up outside to drive the point home that national security advisors should not be stumping in a reelection campaign.

"I urge President Bush to pull Dr. Rice off the campaign trail," Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle of Oakland said, joining a chorus of other Democrats and the Kerry campaign.

But the Bushies are in desperation mode and using everything they can, including the ridiculous and misleading ad called "Wolves" that is supposed to scare everyone into thinking Kerry and "the liberals" will let terrorists destroy America. It might actually work, except for the fact that the wolves look like a bunch of friendly, cuddly doggies.

And of course, it's the White House that is soft on terrorism. If the botching of the flu vaccine is any indication of how this White House would deal with protecting us in the event of a biological or chemical attack, we may as well count ourselves dead now.

Republicans were caught off guard, having no idea that the flu shot would suddenly become both a campaign issue and an example of the downfall of health care under Bush as well as the recklessness of deregulation and lack of government oversight. It was bad enough that Bush didn't have an answer when the question regarding what happened to create the shortage of flu vaccine came up during the debates. Loath to admit that the Food and Drug Administration did not monitor the company that produces the vaccine, Bush went off on a ludicrous tear about trial lawyers. He then said he'd get us some vaccine from Canada even though in the second debate, regarding re-importation of cheaper prescription drugs, he told us we couldn't trust drugs from Canada. (In the end, it turns out we can't get vaccine from Canada, since they don't have enough and we'd have to put it through a lengthy, months-long approval process anyway.)

But making it all worse was the fact that, after Bush said he wasn't getting a flu shot and asked others who are "young and healthy" to do the same-including the millions who don't have the kind of health care that he does-it was revealed that Dick Cheney, treasury secretary John Snow and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, among other prominent Republicans, got the shot. True, Cheney has a heart condition and is thus among the old and frail who should certainly get inoculated-something I'm sure the administration didn't want to remind voters about.

But Frist, a doctor himself, is in excellent health. His Senate office soon became a makeshift clinic where he gave shots to other members of Congress, as the shortage that hit the rest of the country strangely didn't happen on Capitol Hill. Frist gave out the shots two days after health officials urged that those not at risk of serious illness refrain from getting it. Frist's excuse for giving his cronies shots in his office-as poor old ladies were crossing the border to Canada to get inoculated-was that one-third of the members of Congress are over 65 and that many have various kinds of cancer or heart disease. Just how many of the two-thirds of Congress under 65 are that feeble and sick? Is cancer more rampant in Washington than anywhere else?

Under fire from Democrats, Frist and the gang donated the remaining flu vaccine-3000 doses-to the city health department to give to people who need it. The bungling of the flu shot, as well as the anger and desperation it has caused, became a metaphor for the entire Bush presidency.