The Selling of the Apocalypse

For years now, the Administration has been playing on fear to sell its agenda. 

Through intimidation, manipulation and clever marketing, this tactic has successfully scared off the media and the Democrats from attacking their message or confronting their methods.  For a good while, they squeezed the juice out of 9/11.  Lately, however, they’ve had to be more creative. 

Since the Auschwitz anniversary, Bush and Co. have gotten some good mileage out of the Holocaust.

Even though he couldn’t see fit to dress respectfully for the anniversary ceremony (photo), the Vice President had no trouble donning a proper coat for this shot for the White House photo gallery.

According to the in-house caption, Dick Cheney is shown in a room at the Auschwitz camp formerly used as barracks for Nazi prisoners, beside a display of empty cans of Zyklon-B gas used against former prisoners.

And then, there is this shot of Condi Rice at the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem two days ago. 

With the fire, and the stone, and the jutting rocks that seem to replace a spectator’s head, Condi might as well be presiding over a bonfire at the Salem witch trials. 

(image 1: REUTERS/Oleg Popov in YahooNews; image 2: David Bohrer at whitehouse.gov)