I didn’t even know who Russell Shaw was before I read this post.

here is his bio on HuffPo:

Russell Shaw is a technology and politics author, journalist, blogger and consultant in Portland, Oregon. Author of seven books, he writes the daily IP Telephony Blog for ZDNet. His website is www.russellshaw.net.

and here is his lunatic rant:

I hope and pray we don’t get hit again, like we did on September 11. Even one life lost to the violence of terrorism is too much.

If I somehow knew an attack was coming, I wouldn’t pause for a second to report it in order to prevent it from occuring.

But on the other hand, I remind myself that without the ultimate sacrifice paid by 400,000 U.S. soldiers in World War II, tyranny could well have an iron grip on the world, and even on this nation.

What if another terror attack just before this fall’s elections could save many thousand-times the lives lost?

I start from the premise that there is already a substantial portion of the electorate that tends to vote GOP because they feel that Bush has “kept us safe,” and that the Republicans do a better job combating terrorism.

If an attack occurred just before the elections, I have to think that at least a few of the voters who persist in this “Bush has kept us safe” thinking would realize the fallacy they have been under.

If 5% of the “he’s kept us safe” revise their thinking enough to vote Democrat, well, then, the Dems could recapture the House and the Senate and be in a position to:

Block the next Supreme Court appointment, one which would surely result in the overturning of Roe and the death of hundreds if not thousands of women from abortion-prohibiting states at the hands of back-alley abortionists;

Be in a position to elevate the party’s chances for a regime change in 2008. A regime change that would:

Save hundreds of thousands of American lives by enacting universal health care;

Save untold numbers of lives by pushing for cleaner air standards that would greatly reduce heart and lung diseases;

More enthusiastically address the need for mass transit, the greater availability of which would surely cut highway deaths;

Enact meaningful gun control legislation that would reduce crime and cut fatalities by thousands a year;

Fund stem cell research that could result in cures saving millions of lives;

Boost the minimum wage, helping to cut down on poverty which helps spawn violent crime and the deaths that spring from those acts;

Be less inclined to launch foolish wars, absence of which would save thousands of soldiers’ lives- and quite likely moderate the likelihood of further terror acts.

Huh? What does a terrorist attack have to do with anything this nutjob just mentioned?
Justifiably Right wing blogs are tearing him, the Huffington post, the “netroots” and Democrats in general apart.

John Hawkinsn at Right Wing News asks several valid questions:

Here’s a question: How many Democrats were thinking exactly the same way that Shaw was before they voted against the Patriot Act?

How many Democrats were thinking exactly the same way that Shaw was before they demanded that we close Gitmo and soften up our interrogation techniques?

How many liberals in the mainstream media that think exactly like Shaw are letting it color the way they report on the war on terrorism and Iraq?

How many Democrats in Washington that think exactly like Shaw view the whole war on terrorism through this lens?

I have a question of my own. How many voters are asking the same questions as John Hawkins?

My gut tells me more than enough to keep the GOP in power despite it’s own considerable flaws.