Terror Would Help the GOP

So sayeth Hillary:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton yesterday raised the prospect of a terror attack before next year's election, warning that it could boost the GOP's efforts to hold on to the White House.

…"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, 'What if? What if?' But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world," Clinton told supporters in Concord.

"So I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that," she added.

Matt Yglesias calls the remarks a disaster, suggesting instead that "the Democrat best positioned to deal with GOP political mobilization in a post-attack environment is going to be the one who isn't reflexively inclined to see failed Republican policies resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Americans as a political advantage for the Republicans." Josh Marshall agrees, noting that such a contention "signals a lack of confidence either in your own policies or the American people's reasoning powers. And quite possibly both."

The third possibility is that it signals a deep distrust of the media to do its fucking job, instead of just grabbing hold of the nearest easy narrative irrespective of its veracity. Hillary's been repeatedly victimized by precisely that sort of lazy meme-spinning for the last fifteen years; I can imagine she might be a wee bit jaded and—regardless of her confidence in her own policies and the American people's reasoning powers—figure that the de facto narrative that the GOP "owns" the war on terror will prevail.

That said, she should also know better than to feed those narratives with statements like this one. It doesn't exactly give the media reason to go looking for a new, custom-tailored design when everyone on both sides seems happy with the one-size-fit-all version they've got in the closet, waiting to be worn again. And again. And again…