One of the criticisms I often see of President Bush is that he spreads fear among the populace. I’m reminded of a quote that I once saw on The Smallest Minority, by Henry Louis Mencken: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Considering that, I think it’s probably possible that Bush preaches fear, but no more so than any other politician.

Of course, the criticism in question is that he spreads fear about terrorism, that those of us who voted for Bush are cowering in our homes, terrified of the “next 9/11″, praying that Bush can somehow protect us. That, in my opinion, is ridiculous. The way I see it, these people must either believe that a.) September 11th never happened, or b.) we deserved it, and if we would apologize profusely and keep our noses out of other people’s business, we would never have to face such tragedy again.

In case no one remembers, this wasn’t the first time we’d been attacked by these terrorists. There was a previous bombing at the WTC and an attack on the U.S.S. Cole, at the very least. There may very well be other attacks that I’m forgetting. We continued, after those attacks, living without any concern about what was going on. Our responses were brief — drop a missle or two on a potential training camp, and call it even. That didn’t work.

I am not afraid of another terror attack any more than I’m afraid that a plane that I’m flying in will crash while I’m in the air. It may happen, of course, but it’s not something I need to dwell on. Not being afraid that a plane will crash, however, doesn’t mean that I think the mechanic work should be undertaken by a trained monkey.

On September 11th, 2001, a small group of terrorists (acting as agents of a much larger group, led by Osama Bin Laden) proved to us why we can’t keep our head in the sand about the culture that’s producing these “people of mass destruction.” Reminding his people that we need to deal with this problem isn’t an example of the President spreading fear, it’s an example of him reminding us that there is a job that needs done.

If you want to talk about fearmongering, give this year’s campaign another look. Look at the posters reminding black voters that they were once kept away from polls with firehoses (ironically, they were kept away by the party that made the posters…), making them afraid that it could happen again. Look at the number of senior citizens who were convinced that Bush would “take away their social security,” when Bush’s real plan is to help secure Social Security so that those of my generation don’t continue paying into a system that will be completely bankrupt long before we can take advantage.

Does Bush spread fear? All politicians do, to some degree. If we weren’t worried about the issues, then we wouldn’t care who was elected. The question is whether he spreads unnecessary fear, particularly in the area of the War on Terror. In that case, I don’t think he does. He reminds us that there are those who would spread fear in an attempt to spread their agenda, and that we need to fight back, but he doesn’t encourage us to be fearful, he encourages us to be hopeful.