Montana Maven's
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I don't know who you mean by "we". Are you referring to the press or to Americans in general? In poll after poll, Americans say that the worst problems we face are the economy, the war in Iraq and the cost of health care. Unless prompted few Americans name security or the threat of terrorist attacks to be major problems for the nation.

If the media is concerned with security both national and international, and see all other countries as threats, it is because their source of information comes from other news pundits and the media. It is not the American people who are so concerned, so worried about national security and see every other country as a threat, it is the media who constantly enforce and re-enforce each others' superficial concept of the world.

The major reason for this is the inflated egos and conceited belief that their opinion actually matters, that they really are writing the first draft of history (which of course they are not) and that they should have an influence on outcomes and decisions made by the people and the government. They no longer feel it necessary to inform readers and viewers of what happened, they now think it their duty to speculate as why something happened and what might happen in the future because of it. This fulfills the need of the media to be "players" in events, instead of observers and avoid reporting on the much more difficult to understand issues such as the economy and health care. It is also far more glamorous to offer opinion and speculation on worldly events than to write articles that require slogging through government reports and textbooks explaining the workings of, say, health care or free trade agreements.

I wonder at your claim that the left's argument that Bush is incompetent creates more fear in Americans - why do suppose people think that? Bush is not incompetent, Bush is doing exactly what Bush said he was going to do, from the invasion of Iraq to the withholding of federal help to areas destroyed by Katrina - anyone who had paid attention to the 2000 debates would have been able to predict this outcome. Instead, we had a press fixated on candidate Gore's wardrobe, or recycling reports of other journalists on the "lies" told by Gore, or complaints of journalists who were "bored" during the debates because to them, Gore was boring, too cerebral, not beer buddy material and too ambitious.

You now argue that McCain is using those fear tactics of the right and the left to scare Americans and yet Americans aren't scared of China and Russia, it isn't even on the radar screen and instead of informing Americans that despite what McCain says, no other country is going to support McCain's policy and the chance that he might enact such a policy is zero, you choose to re-enforce his fear tactics. McCain is brazenly lying to the American people and instead of informing the public that this policy will be impossible to enact, you yourself frighten Americans with the specter of an alienated America, bereft of friends and a surfeit of enemies.

Frankly, there is no "we" or "ours" here - there is a you and your cohort who endlessly speculate in the echo chambers of book launchings and cocktail parties and foundation seminars and lectures, who have no idea as to what really worries Americans because you no longer have to worry about them. You have jobs, you have health care, you have pension plans - what you don't have is the fear that you won't have a job, you won't be able to make a living, you won't be able to afford health care and you will never be able to retire. It would seem that instead of speculating on which side is striking the most fear in Americans' hearts over foreign policy, you might want to know what it is they really fear and why they rightfully fear it. You needn't fear that "we" Americans have a "maximalist view of international security" because "we Americans" don't have this view, we're too busy worrying about making mortgage payments and filling the gas tank and feeding our children to form "maximalist views".