THE NINE-ELEVENING PART X: REV UP THE FIST-SHAKING PANTS-WETTER OF DOOM!

(photo via Don Van Natta Jr.)

We're finally getting to see what Iraq-War-style hysteria would look like without Bush and Cheney standing ready to make the fantasy real, and, surprise, just as in olden times, the usual press dopes have got their terror drums tuned and in sync, paradiddling as one: be afraid be afraid be verrrrry afraid...

In other words, it's not just buffoons like the Fake Woodsman above; we also have Dana Milbank telling us that Obama is scaring America by not vomiting over the podium in fear.

President Obama is not worried. And that is unnerving.

Yes, the UK's David Cameron is harrumphing to beat the band, but Dana Milbank didn't get a harrumph outta that guy Obama!

A poll released last week by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center found that 54 percent of the public thinks Obama is “not tough enough” in foreign policy. Americans are not necessarily asking for more military action — Pew’s polls also have found a record number of Americans saying the United States should mind its own business — but they seem to be craving clarity. As National Journal’s Ron Fournier put it: “While people don’t want their president to be hawkish, they hate to see him weakish.”

In other words: when you can't dazzle them with drone strikes, baffle them with bullshit. (Or: That's Bullshit -- Boy, Do We Need It Now!) Milbank and Fournier know from years of flogging crap stories that the American People won't pay attention to a summer shower but will tune in twice nightly for a Killer Storm. And so they're out there pitching doom, each hoping the panic surges of traffic run in his direction.

This material is much tamer, at present, than what's coming out of the meth labs of the Right: at National Review, Deroy Murdock ululates, "Pulverize the Islamic State" -- and he doesn't seem too worried about who else gets blown up along with them ("drone-based projectiles, air-to-ground missiles, 500-pound bombs... As Eric Clapton once sang: 'Let it rain'"). This article has it all: Judicial Watch's claim that "high-level federal" sources reveal ISIS is comin' up from Mexico; James O'Keefe dressed as Bin Laden crossing the Rio Grande; Obama golf argh blargh ("If Obama would give his putter and tin cup a rest, he just might find time to craft a strategy for the U.S."), and a bunch of messages from terrorists meant to terrify Americans, all relayed with relish by Murdock because that's what he wants, too.

And once again we undergo a national attention-span test. Here's hoping this time we pass.

UPDATE. In comments, whetstone says David "Bobo" Brooks "shows us how a real pro does it. Since 'ISIS is a material threat to America' isn't going to fly, especially in the context of the last war in Iraq, Our Mr. Brooks wants us to consider ISIS as an existential threat. In the philosophical sense: 'We are not living in a moment of immediate concrete threat, but we are in a crisis of context... Putin and ISIS are not threats to American national security, narrowly defined. They are threats to our civilizational order'... It's the domino theory applied to any fucked-up government or insurgent wanna-be government (provided they make the front page). 'Oh shit, it's a CRISIS OF CONTEXT. CODE RED CODE RED.'"

"Existential threat" reminded me of something from Twitter:

Recognize the existential threat! Take no options off the table! Sounds like Fournier has been to too many management retreats. Or maybe he's reading this off an old Dr. Bronner's bottle.

UPDATE 2. In comments TGuerrant asks a relevant question: "How is it these squealing bundles of suet haven't noticed that the Kenyan Pretender has just droned Hellfires on al-Shabab in Somalia?" More to the point is, what happened to "Obama the bloodthirsty drone maniac" as portrayed by conservatives only last year?