Friday's Metro section story by Kareem Fahimwas headlined"As [1] Election Day Nears, Playing the Terror Card [1]." If that wasn't slanted enough, note the tell-tale word "smear"at the end ofthe URL address to the story (valid as of Friday afternoon), revealing exactly what a Times staffer thinks about accusations from some GOP candidates in New Jersey that their Democratic opponents are soft on terrorism.
"In the waning days of New Jersey [2]'s election season, some candidates for local and state office are reaching beyond the usual campaign accusations of corruption and overspending. They are charging their opponents with being soft on terrorism - or rather, with knowing someone who is.
"In one case, opponents of Tracy Riley, a Democrat running for the State Assembly in the Eighth District, mailed campaign materials accusing her of having terrorist sympathies because her husband is a court-appointed defense lawyer for one of the suspects charged with plotting to kill soldiers at Fort Dix. In another example, State Senator Gerald Cardinale, a Republican, asserted that a widely known civil rights group to which his Democratic opponent's law partner belongs was sympathetic to terrorist organizations."
(The law partner belonged to the state's chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee.)
"And in Toms River, Thomas F. Kelaher, the Republican candidate for mayor, sent out a press release noting that his Democratic opponent, Richard T. Strada, a political science professor, had once organized a forum attended by a legal assistant to Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman [3]. Mr. Abdel Rahman was convicted in 1995 of conspiring to carry out a terrorist campaign intended to destroy New York landmarks.
"Terror talk is routine in national campaigns. But in towns like Toms River, Tabernacle and Ho-Ho-Kus, the splash of terrorism-related campaigning might seem odd, considering that local legislators rarely have to confront issues of national security.
"'I'm completely puzzled by it,' said Peter J. Woolley, a professor of comparative politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University [4].
"But Ingrid W. Reed, of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University [5], noted that even local races take place 'in the real world and in the shadow of 9/11.'
Some candidates' attempts to portray their opponents as allied with terrorists might appear far-fetched. But Dr. Reed said, 'You can rile people up if you paint them as sympathetic to the enemy, with a very simplistic raising of fears.'"
Fahim certainly can't [6]be accused [6]of riling people up about the threat of terrorism -in an article thissummer, he wouldn't acknowledge that the terror plotters targeting Fort Dix, N.J. were motivated by Islam.