In his victory speech yesterday, Vice President Dick Cheney declared, "This campaign has been a tremendously uplifting experience. We've carried the president's message of hope and optimism across the continent..."
Americans should not be so naive as to expect the lying to end on Election Day.
Bush and Cheney ran perhaps the most dishonest presidential campaign in modern history. The fact that the President swayed 51% of the voters does not make him an honest man.
In September, the Republican National Committee sent mass mailings to residents of Arkansas and West Virginian warning them that the Bible will be banned if liberals win the presidency. The wolf pack ad the Bush campaign used in the final weeks symbolized exploiting raw fear to maximize assent. Yet, the Bush team - assisted by much of the media - will seek to make Americans forget all the charades and deceptions the Bush team used to re-capture power. (The Kerry campaign also often relied on fear mongering and deceptions.)
And it would be worse than naive to expect that Bush has learned anything or forgotten anything from his first term. New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd quotes a Bush insider today on Bush will react to his win: "He'll be a lot more aggressive in Iraq now. He'll raze Falluja if he has to. He feels that the election results endorsed his version of the war."
If that is the case, then Tuesday’s election results are a death warrant for an unknown number of Americans, Iraqis, and others.
