Who knew? Karl Rove is vowing to make the war on terrorism a central issue in the midterm elections later this year. The surprising part is that he’s acting as if this were anything new. With the exception of legislation that takes away the rights of people with whom the pork-barrelled Christian Right disagrees, terrorism and the theoretical war on it are the only issues the Republicans have to lure voters, and have been for five years running.

Rove accuses Democrats as a party of living in a “pre-9/11 view of the world.” He does not specify what this view of the world is–he only says that Democrats have it, and that Republicans don’t. He also accuses the Democrats of corruption, lack of energy, and a feeling of entitlement, all without any examples or evidence. This is either amusing or infuriating when one considers the corruption that has lately been revealed within the Republican party–Rove himself is a prime example–as well as the obvious sense of entitlement the GOP feels when they enact law after law to take away the rights and civil liberties of American citizens and give tax breaks to their own businesses.

It is this taking away of rights that Rove must be referring to, if he has any basis for his statements, when he says that Republicans view the world as being post-9/11. Along with the rest of his party, Rove seems to think that the war on the Bill of Rights, nicknamed “the war on terrorism” for the public’s benefit, is the basis of this new era of which he speaks. Thus far, the Republicans’ war on terrorism has amounted to more than two thousand dead American soldiers, countless failed airstrikes against possible al-Qaeda operatives, creation of new anti-American terrorists throughout the Middle East, not capturing Osama bin Laden, and stripping the American people of their First, Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights.

The post-9/11 view of the world Rove speaks of is an approching fascism that demands that Americans surrender their rights and fail in their patriotic duty to question the government. This worldview that Rove urges is nothing less than the unravelling of the fabric of America by its own people–exactly what the terrorists want. If that’s a worldview that Democrats lack, then I would rather be a Democrat.