IT DEPENDS ON WHAT THE MEANING OF "CRISIS" IS

When it works, keep doing it. Fear works. "Greed works." That's all Bush knows, and all he needs to know.

Bush Paints His Goals As 'Crises' --
President Reprises A First-Term Tactic:

"This White House has made an art of creating crisis where a crisis does not exist," said Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.).

Painting a grim picture of problems is as old as politics itself. But Democrats and some presidential scholars say there is a danger for Bush if he appears to stoke fears for political gain. The Bush administration was criticized throughout the campaign -- and before -- for its repeated prewar warnings of Saddam Hussein's deadly weapons cache, which turned out to be based on faulty intelligence and proved largely untrue. Democrats contend Bush also exaggerated the nation's economic problems to justify tax cuts, terrorist threats to convince the public of the need for restrictions on civil liberties, and John F. Kerry's record to win a second term.

"One of the key problems of this form of rhetorical leadership" is discerning the difference "between a genuine and manufactured crisis," said Jeffrey K. Tulis, author "The Rhetorical Presidency" and a government professor at the University of Texas. "People do respond to crisis -- if you think there is one, you tend to support the leader. The danger there is if it appears there is not one, you can have a credibility problem."