Conservative NYT opinion editorial writer William Safire crusades agains fearmongering in: The Year of Fear.

the Fear Room at Kerry campaign headquarters is on a hair trigger to turn any breaking news into a personal threat.
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After approving ads that strike fear into U.S. television viewers by exploiting terrorist beheadings of Americans, John Kerry had the chutzpah to say of Bush’s reminders of 9/11: “He’s scaring people.” That was a classic Fear Room maneuver: as soon as editorial revulsion at scare tactics breaks into print, direct that reaction at the other side.

Like many OpEd writers Safire obviously does not read the news sections of the paper he writes for. Today he did not even scan the NYT front page which has a lead titled:
Cheney Cites Bomb in Critisism of Kerry

Vice President Dick Cheney cast doubt Tuesday on whether Senator John Kerry was strong enough to fight terrorism, and asserted that the nation might one day face terrorists “in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us,” including a nuclear bomb.
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“The biggest threat we face now as a nation,” he said, “is the possibility of terrorists’ ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us – biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind – to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.”

Are Dick Cheney’s speeches written by the Fear Room of the Kerry campaign?

We will not be caught by fear mongering politicians, says Safire and continues:

My advice to voters in this political Year of Fear, as well as to journalists and our sources, is from Joshua 1:9: “Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed.” Courage and freedom will win, and the purveyors of panic will lose.

We hope so and ask Mr. Safire to follow Cheney’s advice who adds:

“You have to get your mind around that concept.”