Why Does Roger Ailes Keep Scaring Us?

Okay, imagine this. You’re a parent. The lives and well-being of some tender innocents are in your hands. September rolls around, and it’s time to send the kiddies off to school. It’s a bright sunny day. The school is three blocks away. Your youngsters are pretty responsible. And a neighbor says, “How are your kids going to get to school?” You say, “I think I’ll let them walk.” And the neighbor says, “Oh that’s a good idea. I sure hope a pedophile doesn’t kidnap them and rape them and torture them and bury them alive somewhere.”

Well, I’m guessing you’d be shocked. Horrified. Appalled. And yet you’d have that terrible image in your head for months and months to come, and you’d think of it every time the kids walked out the door.

Yesterday on ABC’s Sunday morning news program The Week, the president of Fox News, Roger Ailes, stepped into the role of neighbor (for the last few months, Dick Cheney has most frequently played the part.) A couple of moments after bringing up the attempted underpants bomber, Ailes broke into a discussion of the administration’s priorities (whether it should be jobs, jobs, jobs, or jobs and financial reform, to say that the top priority should be “the sovereignty and safety of the United States.” This, of course, is code for waging a global war on terror in the classic Bush Cheney mode.

Well, this is an absurd position, and always has been. Al Qaeda is not a threat to the United States, not to its existence, and certainly not to its sovereignty, which mean its ability to govern itself. Even if it were able to get its hands on weapons of mass destruction, it could not threaten our existence or sovereignty.

What’s obviously true is that the terrorists are threat to people. They are capable of causing tremendous pain and misery and damage, and that we have to fight them strenuously and vigilantly. And the administration is doing that. But people like Cheney and Ailes keep bringing it up and bringing it up simply to frighten us, to produce a fear that they can then manipulate for political gain. It’s ugly and it’s cynical, and we should reject its use in political discussion.

The reality is that smoking kills more people than terrorists do. So does obesity. If these guys really cared about keeping Americans safe, they would outlaw smoking and get everybody to lose 20 pounds. But that wouldn’t get them votes or ratings.

Use your common sense. None of us is guaranteed the next hour. We know it’s not a riskless world. You should send the kids to school.