Over the past few weeks, a new expression has entered the Westminster lexicon: dog-whistle politics. It means putting out a message that, like a high-pitched dog-whistle, is only fully audible to those at whom it is directly aimed. The intention is to make potential supporters sit up and take notice while avoiding offending those to whom the message will not appeal. [Emphasis added. -- Ed]

Kos makes the obvious association with Bush's regular use of allusions (many based in religious language) to send coded messages to his evangelical base without making his secular supporters unduly uncomfortable -- or even aware that there's a hidden meaning to Bush's words. (For instance, the reference to "Dred Scott" being a stand-in for "Roe v. Wade", or the implication in his second inaugural address that he is fulfilling God's plan for the US and the world.)

What struck me about this was the memory of the warnings coming from the White House back in 2001 -- from Condoleeza Rice and Ari Fleischer -- that the videotapes being issued by Osama bin Laden might contain coded messages to his followers.

"At best, Osama bin Laden's message is propaganda, calling on people to kill Americans," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. "At worst, he could be issuing orders to his followers to initiate such attacks."

Rice went so far as to warn the TV networks that they shouldn't broadcast the tapes in unedited form.

These warning made little sense at the time -- the idea that bin Laden's followers would have no way of getting his message (whether overt or covert) except by seeing it on American TV being pretty absurd on the face of it -- but are made more understandable when you consider that sending coded messages is exactly what Bush did in his speeches, and continues to do.

I think that, once again, we have here another example of projection, seeing one's own faults and attributes in other people, especially one's opponents. Once you're sensitized to the right's propensity to project, you begin to see it all over the place. Almost all of the bad things the right claims that liberals do can be seen in their own behavior, yet they seem to be totally unaware of it.