ballot box: Politics and policy.

Nuisance NuanceBush was for reducing terrorism to a nuisance before he was against it.

By William Saletan
Posted Tuesday, Oct. 12, 2004, at 7:14 AM ET

"Now just this weekend, Sen. Kerry talked of reducing terrorism to a 'nuisance'—(laughter)—and compared it to prostitution and illegal gambling. (Booo!) Our goal is not to reduce terror to some acceptable level of nuisance. Our goal is to defeat terror by staying on the offensive, destroying the terrorist networks, and spreading freedom and liberty around the world."

—President Bush, Victory 2004 Rally, Morrison, Colo., Oct. 11, 2004

"Nor can we think of our goal in this war in the way Sen. Kerry described it yesterday in the New York Times. 'We have to get back to the place,' he said, where terrorism is 'a nuisance.' ... This is naive and dangerous."

—Vice President Cheney, Victory 2004 Rally, Batavia, Ohio, Oct. 11, 2004

"Now Kerry says we have to get back to the place where terrorists are a nuisance like gambling and prostitution; we're never going to end them. Terrorism—a nuisance? How can Kerry protect us when he doesn't understand the threat?"

—Bush-Cheney television ad, Oct. 10, 2004

"These fights that we are having against Mugtada militia [in Iraq] are not stretching us thin at all. They are pretty much street thugs with weapons. They don't present much of a military threat. They're a nuisance. They're a harassment. And sadly, as you can imagine with street thugs with weapons, sometimes they kill and wound our soldiers. But in engagement after engagement, they have not been able to stand and fight."

—Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, Deputy Director for Coalition, [Iraq] Coalition Provisional Authority Briefing, May 17, 2004

"The Taliban can kill innocent civilians in small numbers, and be a nuisance, and be a distraction, but it cannot and will not be allowed to be a force, a political force in Afghanistan."

—Adam Ereli, Deputy Spokesman, Department of State, New York, N.Y., Jan. 14, 2004

"We have a number of explosions that happen every other night. I mean, these are tactically insignificant mortar rounds being fired. We are not aware of any casualties, either civilian or military, that accompanied that. There was no attack on any coalition facility that we're aware of. These were nuisance bombings. They're clearly trying to go make a statement, a spectacular statement, but militarily, tactically insignificant."

—Kimmitt, CPA Briefing, Nov. 17, 2003

"Chemical and biological weapons aren't going to affect the operational outcome on the battlefield, and I think the Iraqis know that. They can be a terror weapon, they can be a nuisance, they can slow certain elements, but they would never—they never had the potential to change the operational outcome, to stop the movement of forces."

—Army Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director for operations, Department of Defense News Briefing, April 4, 2003