Patrick pointed me to Jim VandeHei’s “Bush: Kerry Would ‘Weaken’ U.S.” in today’s Washington Post. The notable bit in it is that the Bush/Cheney campaign has stopped pretending that their campaign is based on anything other than fear:
The strongly worded speech, which indicted Kerry as a “tax-and-spend liberal,” was timed to deflect criticism of Bush’s Iraq policy from such key sources as former Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. weapons inspector and the State Department. A Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race with more biting attacks on Kerry’s record and trustworthiness and on what Bush charges is Kerry’s reluctance to use U.S. military force to defeat terrorism. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry’s ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush’s image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said.
Emphasis mine.
I’m not honestly clear on the difference between “stoking public fears about terrorism” and terrorism (acting in a manner to deliberately incite terror) itself.