Scandalmongering:Hit the panic button enough and no one will read the real news

If it weren't for the fact that the past week's headlines have been toying with the emotions of millions of people, and disrespecting the memory of thousands of victims, they'd be awfully funny.
First, we got the steady trickle -- well, maybe a stream and, on a good day, a torrent -- of revelations that seemingly every piece of the federal security apparatus (up to and apparently including President Clueless), was given or posessed at least some inkling that Al-Qaeda wanted to hijack airplanes and crash them into someplace with a lot of Americans in it. (Like, say, a building. In America.)

Then -- well, golly, WHAT A COINCIDENCE -- we've been flooded with a succession of dire warnings, carefully spread over each news cycle, that a new and incredibly horrifying terrorist attack is "certain," "imminent," "unavoidable," or whatever the White House Word of the Day might be, as faithfully relayed by the CJWT's. (Court Jesters with Teleprompters.)

(At least when Karen Hughes was running the White House propaganda show, it was occasionally subtle.)

Tuesday, these warnings hit a new low, with the intonation that Evil Terrorists want to rent apartment buildings and blow them up. Gee, that ought to do wonders for anyone who is or happens to look even vaguely Muslim or Arab and who needs to rent an apartment this month. Nice going, fellas.