When I paint my masterpiece
This 3,800-word AlterNet blockbuster on the 10 worst moments of the Bush presidency took me around two months to write. The damn thing was a literal labor of hate, as I could only do so much research on things like Abu Ghraib and the government’s response to Hurricane Katrina before pounding down a bottle of Stone Arrogant Bastard Ale and calling my friends to bitch about how terrible the last eight years have been.
Here’s the intro:
The 10 Most Awesomely Bad Moments of the Bush Presidency
By Brad Reed, AlterNet.
In a lot of ways, choosing the Bush administration’s 10 greatest moments — disastrous failures, all — is about as pointless as picking out your 10 least favorite hemorrhoids: There are entirely too many of them, and taken together they all add up to a throbbing mass of pain. But unfortunately, history demands that we at least make the effort so that future generations will understand why we perform voodoo rituals cursing Bush’s memory before we go to bed every night.
Please do read the whole thing — it’s long, but I promise that it will be worth your time. And if you’ve got a Digg account and want to promote it that way, then be my guest 🙂
Thanks, everyone!!!!!
You had me at “10 least favorite hemorrhoids”
Now that I have a moment to go “float some ideas,” I’ll print it and take a look at just why you Hate America so much.
Mmmmmmmm. Arrogant Bastard.
Everything is gonna smell like diarrheeeeaaa / When I paint my masterpieeeece….
Who can Digg it?
I’m glad to see the Schiavo affair on the list. That one’s sort of disappeared down the collective memory-hole for some reason, but I’ve always thought it was pretty significant. I think that was a turning point when things really started to go downhill for Bush and the conservative movement in general in the court of public opinion. I remember having the sense that the public at large was sort waking up and realizing that this country was run by fucking wackjobs. It was sort of the fundy Waterloo, where a lazy America realized that these people weren’t normal.
Bonus fun: it totally submarined Bill Frist’s political career, dashing his bold ambition of finishing in a 3-way tie for 6th with Duncan Hunter and Sam Brownback in some unimportant Presidential primary. Good times.
To this day, a glibertarian chum of mine says that “Mission Accomplished” only referred to the mission of that particular ship, not the overall mission, durrr! I noticed a few lesser wingnut lights attempt to pass that one off at the fifth anniversary.
Nice try, guys.
Did you mean fête or feat?
Great job.
It’s hard to believe that for many people, the death and destruction is the high point of the administration. It makes a few very very rich and makes many others get a war erection.
An amazing list to be sure. I’m a bit miffed the Great American Phone Tap didn’t make the list, but good all around.
Jake: You’re right on about the Schiavo affair. It’s one of those events people edit out of their memory because it doesn’t fit with the rest of the narrative of reality. I find myself having lots of “wait, that happened!” moments when I read the history of the last eight years. The one that really catches me off guard is the duct-tape and plastic sheeting. We were all supposed to run out to Home Depot and stock up because the Iraqis were going to launch unmanned drones from boats in the Atlantic to spray the east coast with smallpox or nerve gas or something. Now it seems incredible that (a) anyone believed Iraq was capable or stood to gain anything by those actions or (b) that a GOVERNMENT OFFICIAL would pipe alarmist nonsense like that. Even now, it’s a highpoint of crazy from harumph-harumph official people.
Good article. Under Abu Ghraib you mention Guantanamo, adding a bit on Bagram would underline your point even more. I am worried the “too optimistic?” commenter may be right, Bush is quite capable of affording you a surfeit of new material in the next few months. Hell, there’s probably more to mine in the past even, stuff we’ve all lost sight of in the fog of day-to-day outrages that will be what remains when the fog dissipates.
I like the word “freedomizing.” Sounds like “sodomizing,” which, considering the context, is entirely appropriate.
Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing. Heh. Indeed. We’ve won! Suck it, war critics. Liberals were in bed with Saddam…the new documents prove it! Osama wanted to boogie down to Baghdad. Read the whole thing.
Jeez, thanks for that stumble down memory lane. I had mercifully forgotten some of that. And there are some who will defend him on every one of these points.That’s the zeroth item on the list for me, that there are folks who would repeal the 22nd amendment so they can haz wurst preznit evr kthxbai.
this is awsome! you should send this to something a little more mainstream (not to be a snob…). Its really good and it would be rad to see it in print.
Good work. It never ceases to irritate the living shit out of me how easily comparisons to terrorists slipped from the tongues of the Irrational Bush Worshippers to those who dared, dared even begin to hint criticism towards His Most Holy President And His Eternally Heroic Party Members. Ah, man, you have no idea how bad that shit pisses me off. Like the one guy that compared teachers to al Qaeda because they had problems with NCLB? Man, fuck you.
And now, they’re all like “Oh, we really didn’t think you were the same thing as fanatical mass murders. It’s just politics, don’t be so uncivil.”
derek – Alternet lets me have a lot more fun than supposedly “respectable” publications would. Most traditional news/opinion rags are utterly humorless.
You’re awful confident there won’t be another item, or two, or three, to add to this list….
Entirely awesome, Brad. I often marvel at how you guys are able to suit up and dive into the morass for the benefit of our collective katharsis, but holy shit. I could not have spent the time you did analyzing the atrocities you did. Just literally couldn’t have. And managing to focus on a top ten out of that many eye-poppingly obscene acts? It’s hours too early for a drink here, but I do lift my coffee cup to you, sir.
After reading all that, I’ll be reaching for a bottle of something a little stronger than ale. Maybe Drano.
So, Brad, you wrote a longish piece highlighting the most notable horrors of the Cheney administration?
While I have not considered the document in its entirety, nor spent any long time in contemplation of what it teaches, I’d like to put out a few observations of my own.
Later.
This is important work. It’s a job for historians better than either of us to fully catalogue the horrific atrocities of the Bush regime, atrocities that the GOP has learned well from the Reagan years it can beat out of existence. What you’ve done here is a small step away from another set of myths of young liberals spitting on the troops, of brave conservatives struggling in vain against a treacherous news-media. These shitholes need to be nailed to the wall.
Heck of a job, Braddy.
PS: Someone should track down that SA poster which fashioned the horrible depredations of the last eight years into a pair of massive posters in the shape of the Twin Towers. It’s a great piece of agitprop.
Yep, it was a pretty lousy way for an incumbent to start his second term. Bush went from triumph (well, at least given to him by his stenographers on op/ed pages and the wingnutosphere) to a defining moment in the destruction of American conservatism. And then Katrina happened a few months later. It’s all been downhill since then, Michael Barone and Dean Broder’s Bush is gonna have an uptick this year! No, wait, next year! Uh… nonsense neverwithstanding.
Ohoho. This is a good sentence. 🙂
..But I think you should’ve included the Walter Reed fable somewhere on the list. Since it’s at once an allegory for how Bush says “we’ll support the troops” and so on, but then goes on to ignore the problem until crap literally floats down the walls. Which illustrates the real concern the pretended folksiness fraternity has for the soliders they happen to include in their plans. While pointing out the lack of physical and mental care the returning veterans are receiving will illustrate the reality of the situation. The body count is also fairly large – multiply the amount of dead with four hundred or so, and you’ll get the wounded.
And then we’re not even going into the “strain” on society that would inevitably come later, when these people will have to return to “normal life”.
..Btw, was “stop loss” on the list – and the case where the Pentagon actually won their case against someone who had signed a four- year contract, and wanted to go home again?
Narrowing down the Bush administration’s various debacles to a mere 10 was no easy fete.
I think you mean “feat” (? ) – lord knows, there’s nothing to celebrate about the Bush administration.
When I mention Barone and his various upticks, I’m referencing silliness like this, which the columnist seemed to beat over our heads every month over the course of a year and a half. Then the Democrats blew the pants off the GOP in the midterms, Bush’s numbers reached historic lows, and Baroney decided he’d rather talk about how this poll or that poll completely showed how the GOP was going to win the White House again, which is not to say they would, but oh they will.
Moron.
No, I think “no easy fete” works. It’s been terribly hard to get up a good party lo these 8 feculent years.
My thanks for having compiled this list – & my sympathy for having had to research & edit it. With the list of (not so) honorable mentions, it’s pretty ironclad proof that the guy has done what many said could never be done – make even NIXON look good.
Also worth mention: the TeeVee interview where he’s asked to talk about what he considers his worst mistake, & immediately gets a look on his face like a baboon trying to operate an iPod, because his life-long megalomania won’t allow him to perceive any, as he then proceeds to state with a straight face. Or the one with the nice Irish lady who, instead of providing the usual softballs-&-kneepads routine, promptly & conclusively nails his ass to the wall, after which the White House tries to get her canned, displaying all the classy charm of a biker on acid.
“Nobody could have anticipated” whatever impending clusterfuck of Pure Weapons-Grade Ugliness they were just warned about seems to be a Bush leitmotif, it comes up so much … I’m almost surprised they didn’t say “nobody could’ve anticipated the need for a postwar plan in Iraq” … hell, for all I know, they DID say just that.
Nice piece, Brad.
Couplea things though: First, you didn’t actually include the disastrous invasion of Iraq itself, that seems like kind of a big one.
Also, I’ve gotta say that the hiring of a bunch of hopeless Liberty U. type grads to administer post-invasion Iraq has led to an incredible body count and hit to our reputation in the world, your two criteria. So fucking laughable except for all the dead and wounded. Oops!
But hey, it’s easy to sit on the sidelines and kvetch. Good writing and nicely done.
Thanks for this effort. An accurate chronicle of Bush disasters is important for future generations. In fact, I would like to see this expanded to book form. Perhaps something like…
The Real Y2K Meltdown
An accounting of Bush adminstration disasters
Volume I
Excellent work Brad. I enjoyed every word.
Nice job brad.
Well done!
It was not one of the biggies, but one of the real through-the-looking-glass moments for me was that uproar over the 9th Circuit ruling of the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional. That bit with the Congressvolk gathering to say the pledge and shout the “Under GOD!!!!” part was just creepy and weird.
President Bush sharply criticized the ruling, calling it “out of step” with American traditions and promising to appoint judges that see things his way. “We need common-sense judges who understand that our rights were derived from God. Those are the kind of judges I intend to put on the bench,” Bush added…
It’s always the little things that really bring home the madness, IMO – I also thought that Freedom Fries bullshit was one of the signatures of this very stupid and scary time.
I was still a Bush supporter, albeit a wavering one, during the Schiavo affair. Embarrassing to admit but I was. But man, I remember driving along the PCH listening to Sean Hannity accuse Mr. Schiavo of murder in the way he does it and wondering why the hell my tax dollars are paying for these fools to fly back to Washington and work on a bill designed to “help” one braindead woman. I was outraged when the Florida legislature tried to do it, but I was out of my mind when the actual fucking FEDERAL GOVERNMENT tried the same shit. I think that this incident was really the end of the line for many Bush supports. Katrina and the warrantless wiretapping sealed the deal.
Awesome job, Brad.
Now I think I have to go throw up a bit. 😀
Why have none of you mentioned the good things Bush has done? Let me help: Freeing Afghanistan, making splendid progress in Iraq despite a wavering public an an unhelpful press, ushering in splendid economic growth despite recent small downturns, helping to cure homelessness, helping the AIDS thing in Africa, and not letting any terrorists attack America since 9/11. Where are those? It’s enough to make someone turn their back on the Democrat Party, which I did in 2003. I support Bush and he’s right when he says that history will judge him right.
Joshua, best wishes on your continued recovery.
Brad, lovely article. The only thing missing from #1, “Mission Accomplished” is the fact that the aircraft carrier had to be delayed coming to port in order to stage the stunt, and didn’t they also have to maneuver in circles so that the camera angles worked just right? I seem to recall something about that – they had to make it seem as if the carrier was farther from shore than it actually was….
Excellent piece.
The years since 2000 have been heartbreakingly, exhaustingly horrible.
Kudos on the excellent choice of brew!
[Bush]’s right when he says that history will judge him right.
History will judge him correctly that he was a disaster. Anything good that may come out of the invasion of Iraq will be in spite of the total screw up Bush wreaked. And the benefit will be far less than it should have been.
Even if one were to posit that the invasion and overthrow of Saddam was a good thing – which I don’t – but even if one were to do so, the total incompetence with which Bush carried it out is enough to condemn him. The army even admits how screwed up it was. Everyone involved admits it was a mistake and poorly carried out.
Good stuff, Brad. I think boiling it down to 10 must’ve been the hardest part of all.
I think even the top 25 is an incomplete list.
Plus there was this, from Teh Wikipedia:
I also remember during one of our random fruitless peace talks in Israel, Headline News showing Bush and other leaders walking down this long, gleaming white bridge. Reporter as an aside, and completely without snark, notes that the White House ordered the bridge built just for the camera shot, because the talks were important and Bush wanted a prestigious camera shot.
Hadn’t remembered that in a couple of years. It’s been hard to keep track, really.
Brad, excellent work. Now go rinse your eyes out with sulfuric acid. You’ve earned it.
I do miss, from the list, “outsourcing war to lawless mercenary companies,” but that’s me.
Nice try Ambrose, but you are a mere piker compared to vanderlun’s majesty.
As long as we’re going down memory lane, wasn’t there a trip to a West African country where they cut down all the trees along the motorcade route, for security purposes?
And I believe there were other occasions where the people who lived and worked along a motorcade route – could even have been here in the US during the 2004 election – were confined indoors for several hours while the motorcade passed?
Let’s also not forget his helicopter tearing up the lawn at Buckingham Palace. Good times….
And I say majesty in the same way I’d call a huge elephant bowel movement ‘majestic’.
Good piece.
I too would quibble about the Iraq invasion itself — the article keeps touching on it like the elephant in the room (torture, lies, theatrics, deaths, etc etc) but there is something almost incomprehensibly weird about, y’know, going and kicking some random ass as if we collectively were some kind of retarded, frustrated, over-muscled jerk who just had a bad week at work and wanted to take it out on someone. Or, of course, to get himself beat up because the pain itself is a strange kind of relief.
I love the use of this quote from Khalid Jaberi (of Fatah): “Since the takeover, we’ve been trying to enter the brains of Bush and Rice, to figure out their mentality. We can only conclude that having Hamas in control serves their overall strategy, because their policy was so crazy otherwise.”
Not that I would ever condone entering Bush’s brain with a blunt instrument.
Great work, Brad. My only disappointment is that you didn’t include in the honorable mentions the stunt where Bush “searched” for the missing WMD’s under various pieces of furniture in the Oval Office, while the press corps chortled…and Iraqi civilians and American troops continued dying.
Ah, well…as others have said, there’s just too much there to be able to narrow it down. Someday, some brave soul will compile a chronological account of every misdeed, fuckup, and moment of cringing embarrassment Bush and his maladministration have inflicted upon this country and the world. It will be a multi-volume life’s work, and its author will live a very unhappy life, what with the daily uncontrollable retching.
Good stuff, thanks.
This thread will rival the Epic Thread if we all bring up everything we remember that Bush botched.
Bush almost running over the press corps on the bulldozer and laughing maniacally, anyone?
I think I’ll write about the German wars!
@g: there was LOTS of this during Katrina. Stuff would be rigged up to look good while Bush was walking around or giving speeches and torn down the nanosecond he left. For example, the lighting during the Jackson Square speech, and much of the post-Katrina construction (sandbagging, levee repair, etc.) caught on film while Bush was there. It was all staged.
Who would’ve thought, in our time, we would have a President that needed to resort to Potemkin theatrics? Like the kid that put more effort into cheating than homework, maybe Bush could’ve done a decent job if he spent as much time on governing as he did on politicing and covering up his and his cronies’ fraud and crimes.
. I think that this incident was really the end of the line for many Bush supports. Katrina and the warrantless wiretapping sealed the deal.
I’ve actually thought a lot about the same thing, esp. Katrina – it just seemed like a lot of hardcore Bush doctrinaires descending an endless spiral of horrific lies, locked into a trajectory of overt racist pabulum that no decent person could take seriously.
Can you relate your personal experience re. Katrina? The remark that it was a turning point for Bush supporters/conservatives/etc gets made a lot, but I’ve never heard it elaborated on.
Say what you will about Ray Nagin, but his call for Bush to stop the damn press conferences was spot on.
D’oh.
The Salon article on Katrina, incidentally, said that Ray Nagin is evidently a blue-dog – that is, he donated a large amount to Bush’s campaign in 2000 and was on the phone with Karl Rove while the levees were cracking. He comes out of that version of the story a sort of demon Stagger Lee, shucking and jiving for the cameras while New Orleans drowns.
Great work! Talk about suffering for the cause.
Man, seeing it all piled up like that… and then all the stuff you left out… and then all the stuff you mentioned but had to leave out…
It’s gobsmacking.
I think it has gotten worse, perception wise. At first, it was cushioned by a sense of denial and disbelief that things things were a) that crazy and b) actually happening.
Then, with our hands tied by a spineless collaborating Congress, a suck-ass synchophantic press, and the many clueless and deluded assholes in our population who are literally afraid to have an original thought, the mud lapped a little higher each day.
History, if anything, is going to be harsher than we are now.
IIRC, when Nagin was first elected he was a moderate with the backing of majority-white businesses in NO; the black community offered only tepid support. Then Katrina happened, he reinvented himself, and his support flip-flopped.
Like I said…say what you will. And although Nagin was dead-on with his critique of the endless slew of press conferences, he was out there glad-handing with Bush and his cronies only a few days later.
He’s worthless, mostly.
[…] vouch anything Sadly, No! does (in my case, the only exceptions have mostly to do with China), but this is a particularly magnificent study in presidential shitheadedry and worth reading and savoring, […]
I think it has gotten worse, perception wise. At first, it was cushioned by a sense of denial and disbelief that things things were a) that crazy and b) actually happening.
Then, with our hands tied by a spineless collaborating Congress, a suck-ass synchophantic press, and the many clueless and deluded assholes in our population who are literally afraid to have an original thought, the mud lapped a little higher each day.
History, if anything, is going to be harsher than we are now.
I don’t know who exactly coined it or what exact form it came in, but ‘outrage fatigue’ – so much horrible shit has been going on for so long you don’t really know how to respond any longer. It’s a little comforting to adopt some other mien when dealing with people like Bush – the sarcastic snark, Tacitus disciplining an idiot emperor – but confronting him at all is pretty daunting.
I guess it’s not an event, but I think populating his administration with all the Iran-Contra crooks was pretty gutsy Bush Jr. horribilism.
@alec: it was just the time when the lizard brain of the Republican base was exposed and was to the point where it was simply impossible to associate with these people. Where I (and most others) saw intense human suffering and despair these guys were seeing the Great Race War begin. That didn’t happen, but the fact that they used this clear fuckup from FEMA (which, by the way, I remember doing good work during Clinton’s years) as a way to bludgeon Democrats was just too obvious and ham-fisted.
Like, remember after 9/11 how they said, “this is not a time to point fingers?”. Well, after Katrina none of them said that, they pointed fingers all right, they just pointed them at the Democrats that were standing around. It really was just the time when the Republican machinations, the whole slimeball political machine was laid bare, even moreso than the 2004 election or the Iraq war buildup. And it was disgusting.
I also remember reading an article about the massive efforts being taken by Europe and other areas to protect their coastal, endangered cities. For example, Italy and Venice. Isn’t Italy like, really poor? Isn’t it ruled by a corrupt, incompetent government? Yet somehow they have found the money and means to work on saving one of their cultural jewels. It’s expensive, but worth it they say. Meanwhile, this far richer and supposedly greater country just installed some crappy, half-assed levees to protect its cultural jewel. While a bunch of developers soak up the wetlands because politicians up and down are bought and paid for.
So, yea, maybe conservatism and the raw naked capitalism they espouse isn’t what it’s make it out to be.
Well, it feels downright wrong to bring my minor quibbles after going through what was clearly not an easy piece of writing (and no I’m not going to claim it should have been half as long).
You missed out on the environmental raping and pillaging. From the EPA shenanigans to the Klamath fishkill, there’s stuff there outside of dumping Kyoto that’s worthy of mention.
But really, I applaud the piece. The scope of wrongdoing is both wide and deep, and any attempt at a comprehensive indictment is fighting an uphill battle for sure. I imagine that 3200 words wouldn’t have been sufficient just to summarize the failings of this administration for just the week after Katrina landfall.
I didn’t know a lot of the theater stuff examples folks are bringing up in this thread, which would also make for an interesting article. Don’t forget the fake turkey, the fake soldiers photoshopped into his TV ad, and the scripted “townhall” meetings. Has this clown ever done anything real, or anything on his own two feet?
I think populating his administration with all the Iran-Contra crooks was pretty gutsy Bush Jr. horribilism.
Me too. Not to mention all the Nixon retreads. What amazed me was that he failed to get Henry Kissinger installed as the head of the 9-11 Commission – that and the failure of Harriet Miers for Supreme Court did me a bit of backward-ass good in that they showed that Junior didn’t get everything he wanted.
Don’t forget the fake turkey, the fake soldiers photoshopped into his TV ad, and the scripted “townhall” meetings.
Oh jeez – and then there’s the Crawford ranch. Which will probably be sold on the morning of Jan. 21, 2009 – unless they decide it’s played out after this summer’s brush-clearing, in which case it’ll sell sooner.
Did anyone mention when Bush Jr. proposed an operating budget for AMTRAK of ZERO?
AMTRAK PERSON 1: “Hey, Bob, did the President give us our 2006 budget figures yet? What are we looking at?”
AMTRAK PERSON 2: “We’re looking at zero, Shirley.”
AMTRAK PERSON 1: “Excellent, zero change, I thought we were going to get cut.”
AMTRAK PERSON 2: “No, you don’t understand. I mean zero, as in ‘not one red cent’.”
AMTRAK PERSON 1: “Ummm… Okay… I, uh… Well… ?!What the f*** do they propose to do with all these g** d*** trains & sh*t then?”
AMTRAK PERSON 2: “I guess they propose we shut the f*** up and go away.”
So, yea, maybe conservatism and the raw naked capitalism they espouse isn’t what it’s make it out to be.
The way I see it, there’s a fairly quiet but clearly discernable move away from the Republicans largely because they’ve abandoned actual ideology for crazed dick-wagging voodoo. Obama’s political and economic policies, with a couple of historical exceptions, wouldn’t be out of place in a New England Republican platform ca. 1960.
Ultimately, the way I hope it comes out is that the Republican hardliners shrivel up and die, the moderates jump ship for the Democratic center, and the left (myself included) leave them behind to have free rein to run their own platforms without being interfered by by dour old machine-politics artifacts. I’m voting for Barack Obama not because he’s the kind of candidate I’d want to vote for but because he’s the kind of candidate I’d want to vote against.
The Goldwater-Reagan-Bush stream of reactionary lunacy has to end, and there have to be some basic assumptions behind the political discourse. With Obama or someone like him, I can at least count on him not leaving anyone without heat in the dead of winter, under sea level in a hurricane, or in a public school district under a privatizing regime. I get the impression there’s no depth Bush wouldn’t sink to if he could get away with it; if the situation called for it he’d try and repeal Hammurabi’s Code. Having shitheads like that in a position of political viability is just horrifying.
Like you say – they actually protect cultural treasures in Italy and France, no matter how radical the left or right get. (Italy seems to be rapidly becoming an exception – the new mayor of Rome greeted supporters with fucking fascist salutes – but what can you do?) When you look at especially northern Europe, there’s a shared liberal-democratic consensus (ignored only by tiny and minor parties on the fringe) which prevents anything too horrible, like looting the engineering, welfare, and education budgets to fund ridiculous corporate welfare programs, from being muscled through. Once we have that and a government that isn’t actively working to make everyone’s lives shittier, there could be hope for this country. God willing.
BTW, Jason Ambrose:
I see you say nothing to refute the lengthy, multi-count indictment in Brad’s article–which would have an even more damning impact if it were written in a list rather than a paragraph.
Meanwhile, your defense is pathetic. Afghanistan is an open question and the “freeing” of it was decisively botched when Bush took forces from there and sent them into Iraq. Your “splendid economic growth” is splendid only for the rich. The “splendid” progress in Iraq is only in relation to the sheer carnage, chaos, and political ineptitude of the previous seven years. When someone is hitting you with both a hammer and a tire iron, getting him to put down the hammer constitutes splendid progress, of a kind.
“Helping to cure homelessness”? Whatever. I’ll give you AIDS in Africa even if US aid was (and still is?) contingent on denying the provision of condoms, to pander to yahoos and religious cretins at Africa’s expense.
And that’s your affirmative defense. Do the Dems a favor. Stay where you are.
OT but JiSM3 addict Michael Scherer has a new piece of tripe out. It’s about flip-flops, so of course he mentions Kerry. Then, in the face of the staggering amount of about-faces delivered by old man Huggy-Bear, he comes out with – well both candidates do it, and besides being able to change your mind is a good thing, look at W.
His commenters, as usual, rip him to shreds. Someone, somewhere in texas, posts the carpetbagger McCain flipflop watch, I have to press PgDn three times to get past it.
But here’s what I’d like to add. One of his examples for Obama’s flip-flops (and boy does he do a lot of digging to find some) is public financing. So in the interest of being balanced and mentioning that both parties do it – I think that anytime anyone mentions Obama’s public financing “flip-flop” they must also point out that JiSM3 is likely in violation of the campaign financing law that he co-authored.
I will also note that we’ve yet to touch the hiring of bureaucrats who all wanted to do away with the departments they were assigned to.
Of course, they really can’t do away with the department, so they do the most cartoonishly lousy job they can at it.
Wow, googling turns up all sorts of stuff, some of which had slipped my memory: the Brooks Brothers riot, Armstrong Williams, Jessica Lynch, Jeff Gannon, Saddam statue toppling, Pat Tillman, Curveball/intelligence, manufactured press “leaks”, FEMA press conferences, Al Qaeda’s multitudes of “number 3” men… Christ almighty was anything real? Besides all the dead people, I mean.
Of course, they really can’t do away with the department, so they do the most cartoonishly lousy job they can at it.
Very good point, and definitely opens yet another can of feces from the overflowing Bush pantry. I was a bit surprised that they didn’t just disband all the departments, but I suppose it’s a bit more politically palatable to do a crappy job and shrug “no one could have predicted” about all of it. That, and leaving the departments nominally intact allows for the shovelling of their budgets into cronies’ pockets.
And there was, of course, the creation of a monster dept, Homeland Security, which seems to have been assembled purely for the purposes of looting a huge budget, covering up crimes, and dismantling whistleblower and union protections.
I will also note that we’ve yet to touch the hiring of bureaucrats who all wanted to do away with the departments they were assigned to.
What, you mean taking people who say that having a certain job inherently means being a horrible statist Hitler and handing them that job is a bad idea?
WHADDA TWIST!
Christ almighty was anything real? Besides all the dead people, I mean.
George Bush fils: the first pomo president.
And there was, of course, the creation of a monster dept, Homeland Security, which seems to have been assembled purely for the purposes of looting a huge budget, covering up crimes, and dismantling whistleblower and union protections.
This brings up another awesome thing Brad forgets: shuffling millions of dollars from domestic intelligence in New York City and assigning it to such high-risk terrorist targets as South Dakota’s second-largest skating rink and the world’s largest ball of twine.
Also: the creation of a monster debt, which has been a consistent element of Republican policy since Reagan and which has as its ineluctable conclusion a period of hyperinflation to beggar Weimar Germany’s.
I’d really, really look into asking for your paycheck in Euros if I were you. Also, rack up as much credit debt as you like – after about a decade, the difference between paying off a 2005 toaster oven and a 2005 doctorate is probably going to be about a week’s worth of work.
Really, the immediate use of Homeland Security as a pork-flinging mechanism should tell history all it will ever want to know about the naughty aughties. Park rangers in Zion have nightvision goggles and yet police in Bosnywash probably don’t have the resources to handle a decent-sized riot.
If there’s anything the rich haven’t stolen from us, it’s because we’ve done a hell of a job of hiding it.
Also: attempting to run down the press corps with a tractor. ‘I’m about to crank this sucker up!’ I did an article for that one on the local paper, and I think the phrase I used was the horrible comedy of it being beyond our meager capacity to add or subtract. The man’s a sixty-year-old frat-boy.
And that’s not even counting the completely idiotic things he’s said in speeches and other public occasions.
NOT EVEN.
Remember when Bush refused to be interviewed by the 9/11 commission? And then he said that he would “visit” with them but only if his ventriloquist could sit next to him and hold his hand?
Oooh… I also liked:
The appointment of Dr. David Hager to Advisory Committee for Reproductive Health Drugs, he the Christian anti-Contraception activist and recommender of prayer to cure PMS, then alleged by his wife in divorce papers to have repeatedly anally raped his wife in her sleep because this gynecologist said he ‘missed’.
Then there was the appointment of a male veterinarian to head Bush Jr’s Office of Women’s Health.
WereBear, yep:
Fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.
Bush’s silver tongue has had one good use, though: Every time some ad hoc wingnut jocksniffer like Hooters Hewitt, Confederate Wankee, or Instastalker attempts to roll with the Obama=Gaffe-o-matic!!! stuff, all it takes is one Is our children learning? or Put food on your family or Make the pie higher or Now watch this drive to serve up a nice helping of STFU.
Yeah, I dunno so much about Italy. In the past ten years, with political corruption and mafia influence, their sanitation has shit the bed. The govt’s excuse is that there’s no dumps to move the garbage to, but its more likely the mob shut them down for no reason. Germany offered to remove the trash for 200 Euros per ton, which is on hella deal, but the Italian govt is still dragging their feet.
Meanwhile, the region around Naples is buried under piles of trash while disease spreads and cancer rates skyrocket.
‘Nucular’ is a feature of the Southern dialect, and is used even by erudite and intelligent people within its borders. Carter uses it, for instance.
Bush uses it, in spite of the fact that he probably first heard it when he was in his 30s, because he is given to understand Southrons are idiot stammerers and wishes to give that impression of himself to America and of America to the world.
You remember when Carter was brutalized by a rabbit, and it was generally agreed to be the low-water mark of his troubled Presidency? Insert it into Bush’s career and it’d be a moment of triumphant resolve and bravado compared to everything else in it. He is literally lower than whale shit.
Now that’s the Sledgehammer of Justice™ I remember!
Rock on, Bradrocket.
Impressive. I want to be published too, but spending two months immersed in the diseased, rotting excrement that is the foul legacy of this failed administration is a little higher price than I’m willing to pay.
Thanks…
mikey
Alec- To tell the whole story, it’s nook-yoo-lah. And yeah. My uncle, a former nuclear engineer, says it that way.
Please allow me to go OT here, but who can’t love a post that starts like this?
Very scary I knew Freedom of Speech would be cut with Obama in the White House but this is ridiculous.
My personal favorite: the mention of banning “human-animal hybrids” in the sixth annual State of the Union address.
I was drinking at the time, but not that much. And throwing cat toys at the screen (the stuffed ones.)
And I still remember it well.
…spending two months immersed in the diseased, rotting excrement that is the foul legacy of this failed administration is a little higher price than I’m willing to pay.
Right there with you. Of course, we’ve spent 7 1/2 years soaking in it, but it is very painful to be reminded of the highlights.
I just hope that these years are the low point of our history. I can imagine a lot worse, and indeed we see much worse acted out every day in less fortunate parts of the world. It’s still sucked some pretty major ass, though.
WHADDA TWIST!
Best takedown of M. Night. Shamalan EVAR
My personal favorite: the mention of banning “human-animal hybrids” in the sixth annual State of the Union address.
I was drinking at the time, but not that much. And throwing cat toys at the screen (the stuffed ones.)
And I still remember it well.
That was the same one with the random name-drop of Zimbabwe, right? I like that Bush has taken the State of the Union and turned it into a series of surreal tableaux in which the most preposterous ideas possible are thrown into the air – where they land, we suspect, he does not care – besides, that is, the idle hope that some of them might stick.
We really need a law that forces anyone who can’t understand the difference between groping at sci-fi absurdities and sound policymaking to rim out Rove. It’ll be uncomfortable and disturbing for all concerned, and all the more so when it’s still on the books after he dies.
Missile defense: because the glibbie SF wonks will cry if someone doesn’t throw another half trillion dollars at Star Wars.
MARS BITCHEZ!!!
MARS BITCHEZ!!!
That whole time I was waiting for him to announce a bold new plan for NASA that would guarantee that America would be the first nation to set foot on the Sun.
Dude, you forgot one! The White House vandalism story!
Remember? Remember how the Clinton staff had left obscene graffiti and had stolen all kinds of fixtures and cut hundreds of wires and destroyed a bunch of keyboards in a fit of pique?
And remember how the Bush administration COULD have have really gone after the Clinton staff, because the damage was really really bad, and they were cataloging it just in case, but Bush didn’t want to do anything because he’s a uniter not a divider, and he wanted to focus on policy issues?
And then remember how the GAO asked the Bush administration for written records of the damage, and it turned out that by “cataloging the damage” they meant that one guy was just sort of remembering in his head which rooms he had to clean, and so the GAO couldn’t find any evidence of vandalism at all?
Man, remember that? Good times. One of the first things these fuckers did was lie to us in order to do nothing more then smear the reputation of somebody who wasn’t even a political opponent anymore.
If that happened in a personal relationship you’d never trust another thing the guy said to you, you’d say to people, “That guy’s a liar, don’t believe anything he says without double-checking” but when a politician does it it barely puts a dent in their popularity.
Lying about the levees would be enough to send all these guys to hell even if they hadn’t done anything else.
Incidentally, Ambrose the Troll brings up a good point:
Anthrax letters = not terrorism. Those have disappeared right down the memory hole. I know the Orwellian imagery is over-used but those really are gone. We’ve reached the point where a news correspondent can assert the fact that there have been no terrorist attacks since 9/11 and an Obama staffer will accept the premise.
Nobody sent any letters and nobody died from anthrax. It’s a fact now.
By the way, does failing miserably to figure out who sent those letters constitute an administration failure?
Well, Bush is smarter than that. He’d set the launch time such that the astronauts will reach the sun by nightfall, and they won’t risk getting burned by it.
The anthrax letters weren’t really the best timing. So soon after 9/11 they weren’t very useful for any grand political narrative. It was sort of like winning the lottery and then finding a twenty on the street.
Of course, if that happened now, it would prove that we have to eliminate FISA completely, drill in ANWAR, and invade Iran or you just don’t love America enough. It would be like the same lottery winner winding up homeless after 7 years of coke parties and money bonfires. Now that $20 is looking pretty good, eh?
Congratulation Brad. A good piece with one of my favorite venues. Agreeing with spencer, “freedomizing” is right on target. Deserves a citation in Webster’s 4th.
If you watch the Chomsky interview on the Alternet home he disses my prefered solution to America’s chronic hemorrhoid problem. I call for a new form of democracy and he says, if Haiti and Bolivia can change using their existing systems then the US should be able to do it too.
Yeah, that fake vandalism story was the first sign that these guys were a bunch of crooked motherfuckers. And that happened what? Days after the inauguration?
Man, some great memories being brought up, like the time Bush tried to run over journalists with a tractor (they still had a man crush on him after that, remember) and the fake FEMA press conferences.
I’m amazed that nobody, myself included, mentioned his dancing. And the time he choked on peanuts. Or when we found out about Dick Cheney’s “man-sized vaults”. Or when Dick Cheney seriously asserted that he was part of a unique fourth branch of government (unknown to any VP or, indeed, any person before that).
Fringe stuff, to be sure, but there’s just so much. Sometimes I wonder if you could look back at any President and see this amount of crazy stuff. I was too young to remember Clinton or Bush or Reagan that well… but I doubt it
Obamania will crash and burn my misguided liberal friends.
And by the way, the entire Hurricane Katrina disastor was the fault of Kathleen Blanco the Democratic Governor of Louisiana and Ray Nagin the corrupt shrill in charge of New Orleans.
In addition to their criminal incompetence Mayor Nagin ordered his New Orleans cops to disarm law abiding gun owners thus allowing them to be victimized by armed criminals.
In Mississippi however, under the leadership of Republican Governor Haley Barbour, order was quicky restored after the flood and their was far less economic and property damage than in Louisiana. But you’ll never hear that in the MSM.
Because of the incompetence of their Democratic politicians, Louisana citizens overwhelmingly elected Conservative Republican Bobby Jindal as Governor. And Democrat Mary Landrieu is predicted to lose her Senate seat this November, in addition to McCain’s solid victory in this Conservative and increasingly Republican state.
Obamania will crash and burn my misguided liberal friends.
Oh joy, a new bombast troll.
Erik Pontoppidan = Baghdad Bob
I’m amazed that nobody, myself included, mentioned his dancing.
Remember him falling off the Segway?
Good times…..
Why is it that none of these trolls can spell?
In Mississippi however, under the leadership of Republican Governor Haley Barbour, order was quicky restored after the flood and their was far less economic and property damage than in Louisiana.
If so it was because the stuff destroyed in Mississippi was worth less to begin than the stuff in NO.
Um, aren’t we forgetting Jimmy Dale ‘8 inches cut’ GannonGuckert?
Boehlert:
Why is it that none of these trolls can spell?
It really is amazing. How hard can it be to cut-and-paste?
Mr Pantoppidan,
Does this mean that we’ll be seeing more private high schools enjoying unusual popularity with white folks down Vicksburg way? Separate but equal of course but aren’t the basketball skills of young white men suffering as I’ve heard their academies tend to avoid games with the overwhelmingly black public schools.
How hard can it be to cut-and-paste?
Yeah. It makes me think that they’re getting the source material via fax from not-so-tech-savvy masters and having to retype it.
Or they might just be trying to improvise different wordings – at the direction of the talking-points provider, of course – to avoid easy Googling to show that it’s the same shit being posted everywhere. Didn’t they get busted for that when the same letter to the editor showed up at 2342342 different newspapers all at once?
Great job, and hemorrhoids is an apt description when you consider that
a) one cause of those veiny-painful protuberances is sodomy; and
b) Bush&Co has been ass-raping America and parts of the planet since 2000.
I see a marriage between your top ten effort and the annual 50 most loathesome people list. Mutual linking and such.
Obamania will come to ruin my childish liberal friends.
And by the way, the entire Hurricane Katrina issue was the fault of Kathleen Blanco the Democratic Governor of La. and Ray Nagin the corrupt dork in charge of New Orleans.
In addition to their horrible incompetence Mayor Nagin ordered his New Orleans cops to disarm law abiding gun owners thus allowing them to be victimized by armed thugs.
In Mississippi however, under the leadership of Republican Governor Haley Barbour, order was awesomely restored after the flood and their was far less economic and property damage than in Louisiana. But you’ll never know that from the MSM.
Way OTT but the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time.
Joe Cocker’s Woodstock performance…with subtitles.
http://www.newsfromme.com/arch…..tml#015428
Hi-larious.
May I humbly suggest that this troll has just self-selected his new nickname?
Jason Ambrose: The AIDS Thing
Maybe that’s why they fax and retype it. After being mutated so many times by spelling and transcription errors, there’s less of a chance of it popping on Google with a few keywords. It could very well be that there were 10753241 copies of those letters to the editor instead of 2342342.
I’m pretty sure Erik Pontawhatever is fake. He showed up here once before and I googled his nym, apparently that was an obscure church official in the Dark Ages or some such. I doubt a right-wing blast fax troll is really that clever.
“clever” being somewhat relative as this bombastic troll shtick is just getting stupid, and not particularly funny.
I doubt a right-wing blast fax troll is really that clever.
Maybe they also blast-fax the nyms. Rightie talking point providers know their minions all too well.
t could very well be that there were 10753241 copies of those letters to the editor instead of 2342342.
Oooh, I hadn’t thought of that. And anything less than 5789281 just sails under the radar.
comsympinko, linky no workee. Really “the funniest thing I’ve seen in a long time”? Repost if yes, because I have needs.
What about the pretzel choking story?
I don’t know what he was consuming, but it was either alcoholic or narcotic in nature, and it sure as hell wasn’t a pretzel.
tigrismus—
here.
Joe Cocker’s Woodstock performance…with subtitles
Um… I’ll have what he’s having.
No kidding. But a fraction of the amount he had.
And thanks, Simba and comsympinko!
As it turns out, Rove actively stage-managed New Orleans to try and make political hay out of it. The neighboring states received prompt, effective federal aid, in spite of lacking the severe geographic threats facing New Orleans in specific and LA in general.
The populace of New Orleans held up spectacularly in spite of the worst possible human disaster – the only way it could have been any worse is if there were literally a war on American soil preventing them from leaving at all – and then Bush tried to fucking push them back in. Brown promised ships, trucks, troops, supplies; he got petulant when Blanco started moving her own. As soon as it became clear that it was an elaborate, and fucking unthinkable, screw-job, Blanco sprung into action and, over a national harpys chorus of recrimination and a steady barrage of racist slurs, with constant and deliberate interference by Nagin and the Bush administration, Blanco made do.
The story of Louisiana could not be more horrifying an exercise in a-federal government if it had been designed in advance to be. The people in charge didn’t know they were going to be thrown into that surreal game and made to play by those barbaric rules, but they came out surprisingly well – a tribute to their own abilities and the strength and resilience of the human spirit. Some of the poorest people in the Northern Hemisphere were plunged deliberately into a fucking swamp, and they came out smelling like a rose – and orderly and quiet.
You want another thing to put on Bush? Right-wing email spam. I especially like the ones that claim a surge in rape, murder, theft, haint/ghostly spookin’s, et-fucking-c. Evidently introducing black people to Utah was an affront to fucking civilization; I really wish we could find the kind of shitheads who believe it fitting to make up and believe in shit like that and force them out of the country. If you don’t have the mental goods necessary to exhibit basic fucking hospitality, you don’t belong here – and it’s difficult to consider you human at all.
Evidently introducing black people to Utah was an affront to fucking civilization…
Yikes, I hadn’t seen that one. Were these black people from New Orleans or the Somali refugees?
I, for one, welcome… and so on.
They practice faith-based spelling.
Is anyone else here insulted by the notion that we’ve got this gigantic, incredibly powerful, modernized federal government funded to the tune of trillions, but if I’ve got friends or relatives somewhere in the country, their lives depend solely on Mayor Bumblefluck or the County Commissioners or City Manager Nimrod?
This is exactly how Republicoids want us to think. ‘Oh, your city will flood in 24 hours? Call your mayor… Oh, there’s somewhere that might thrill us to be bombed? Send the billion dollar stealth bombers there stat!’
http://www.snopes.com/katrina/personal/utah.asp
Katrina.
Oh, Utah-chan.
Is anyone else here insulted by the notion that we’ve got this gigantic, incredibly powerful, modernized federal government funded to the tune of trillions, but if I’ve got friends or relatives somewhere in the country, their lives depend solely on Mayor Bumblefluck or the County Commissioners or City Manager Nimrod?
BWOOOP BWOOOP STATISM ALERT STATISM ALERT RETREAT TO EXURBAN GATED COMMUNITY IMMEDIATELY AND AWAIT FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS
Hey, we had Bush for years as governor before he spread to the rest of the US like a syphyilitic disease. Molly Ivins, God bless her, warned everyone what Bush was like and what the country was getting itself into.
I’m pretty sure Erik Pontawhatever is fake. He showed up here once before and I googled his nym, apparently that was an obscure church official in the Dark Ages or some such. I doubt a right-wing blast fax troll is really that clever.
That’s certainly possible (E.L. Pontoppidan was actually an 18th century Danish pietist, but meh, close enough), but both Erik and Pontoppidan are reasonably common Nordic names, so our new acquaintance is not necessarily fake, though he’s certainly tiresome.
You liberals try to say all the poor black folk from NO were nice and sweet, but most of them were and are criminals, I heard from a friends in a nearvy city that they put some refugees in a school gym but the same day they raped a dozen kids and robbed them for drug money, but the liberals defended them anyway, suicidal as always about their own race. I look after my own.
I heard that a lot of people in New York City adopted refugees from New Orleans, but then they got tired of them and flushed them down the toilet and now they’re like 14 feet tall and they live in the sewers.
E.L. Pontoppidan was actually an 18th century Danish pietist, but meh, close enough
Yeah, I shoulda looked at the Wiki page again before posting that comment.
The fact is, Obama has been exposed as a left liberal loon who stands for nothing and has dangerous ies to islam and terrorism, while McCain is a war hero who demonstrates genuine leadership and talks straight. The liberal media worship of Obama will not convince us in the heartland. He is a big phony and possibly the antichrist.
The fact is, global warming is a big sham and a delusion, yet you liberals still scream science. I scream bias, and refute you this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121486841811817591.html?mod=loomia&loomia_si=t0:a31:g2:r5:c0.160475
The fact is, “torture” has kept America safe. Liberals should shut up.
The fact is, our economy is awesome. I don’t even to produce any facts or evidence to support this, it is so obviou. But liberals whine because they didn’t work hard enough and want something for nothing. Shut up.
Damn, and now somebody put a quarter in Gary. Yet more proof that Brad did a good job, when the trolls scurry out from under the furniture.
Hey liberals, when are you going to debate me with facts and logic? Didn’t think so. You are all aware you are wrong and have no words. I only have two for you: shut up.
Just like old times.
The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts may well amount to a fifth column…Dick Cheney is like big strong daddy, incredibly sexy and desirable, who makes me want to curl up in his lap and purr…John Kerry is a coward, yes, I’ve said it…I am literally fighting in the front lines of the war on terror. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts may well amount to a fifth column…Dick Cheney is like big strong daddy, incredibly sexy and desirable, who makes me want to curl up in his lap and purr…John Kerry is a coward, yes, I’ve said it…I am literally fighting in the front lines of the war on terror. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts may well amount to a fifth column…Dick Cheney is like big strong daddy, incredibly sexy and desirable, who makes me want to curl up in his lap and purr…John Kerry is a coward, yes, I’ve said it…I am literally fighting in the front lines of the war on terror.
[apologies and thanks as always to the ONE AND ONLY original true Malfunctioning Glenn Reynolds Robot]
The fact is, “torture” has kept America safe. Liberals should shut up.
Information attained under torture is notoriously unreliable, as its frequent use in fascist and Soviet kangaroo courts indicates. Torture is tactically retarded, and the debate only occurs because the CIA is half-populated with sadistic nimwits who really believe the Company exists to allow them to live in their personal version of 24.
Leaving aside any ethical issues, torture is stupid, using it is stupid, and vouching for it is a sort of craven idiocy similar to saying the sky is plaid because the Party says so.
And a WSJ article is supposed to ‘prove’ global warming to be a hoax? Really now. I guess next you’re going to prove something about WW2 historiography with David Irving. Come on now; stop getting lazy like this.
This post is nothing but pure BDS, liberal envy and bias. How many times do I have to school you on laws of economics? How many times do I make you my bitches with the facts? Reality has no place for liberalism.
And all the Soros and Gore funded bias in the NYTimes proves there IS Global Warming? Gimmie a break.
The leftward tilt in our media proves how stupid liberals and their so-called universities are, nobody learns anything about economics anymore. Unless we get back to science and facts and truth, we will be beaten by the Chinese.
How many times do I have to school you on laws of economics? How many times do I make you my bitches with the facts? Reality has no place for liberalism.
One. Zero. Yes, for a sufficiently plad-skied definition of “reality”.
You win, and may retreat honorably.
Jason, when you’re doing a shot like this, after the steaming ejaculate has been deposited on your tongue, to show the audience the real juicy goodness of it all you have to stick your tongue back out, show the fresh load upon it, then swallow, then show your now-clean tongue, thus proving that not only did you suck, but you also in fact swallowed.
That’s how they do it in the big leagues these days.
The fact is I have a rock that keeps terrorists away, which I got on E-bay after September 11th. The anthrax attacks only took place because I left it in my other pants. I learned that lesson and haven’t changed them since.
Global warming is not real because Jesus allows the outgoing longwave infrared photons to escape the Earth’s atmosphere into space at the exact same rate as they did when fewer greenhouse gases were present, no matter what the big-head fancy pants ‘scientists’ say. Hal Lindsay predicted this 800 years ago.
And all the Soros and Gore funded bias in the NYTimes proves there IS Global Warming? Gimmie a break.
I guess I do need to be educated in economics; I was unaware that it involved Soros somehow funding the NYT (by osmosis, evidently – because the Times group is an unrelated enterprise – although I guess it all falls under ‘the Jews’ for you serious economists anyway). Even more interesting is the suggestion that somehow Al Gore, who with the exception of a global speaking tour has been a private citizen without any other business or public power, is a funding body for the New York Times.
I guess he’s kind of hook-nosed if you squint at him.
Could you look out a window for me and tell me which exact tartan the sky has? I’m curious.
Unless we get back to science and facts and truth, we will be beaten by the Chinese.
And to get back to that science, facts and truth, we must turn /our/ nation in a theocratic state where all students may only read the BIBLE.
Well, the rightie trolls are half-correct about one thing – I think terrorist activity will spike upwards after President Obama is sworn in. They’re just wrong about who the terrorists will be. It’s going to be like the worst sequel ever – 1990s Militia Movement II – Armed Bonehead Boogaloo.
The fact is, this treasonously liberally biased hit piece will not stand. You liberals will pay for this on election day. This article just lost your election.
-The Heartland
Goddamn, I had no idea Brad was so powerful.
Good going, Brad, costing us the election from your jewel-encrusted throne.
Ohhh! You a naughty boy, Mistah Golberg! You make naughty in your diaper! You been so bad I spank you long time! That two hundred euro. No, no – two hundred euro. Just ’cause I got to speak like China Doll for clients don’t mean I a retard. Now you bend ovah nice and quick or I give your ass the Porn Dragon King.
Well, I have a Hadrosaur pelvis with a petrified .375 H&H slug embedded in it in my sock drawer. Along with three magnetic monopoles….
Unless we get back to science and facts and truth, we will be beaten by the Chinese.
Oh, I’m prepared to predict here and now that we WILL be beaten by the Chinese, soundly and quite similarly to how one beats a big bass drum.
The Olympics are in their home town, and they excel at many summer olympics events including diving, gymnastics and synchronized swimming…
mikey
…they excel at many summer olympics events including diving…
Right you are. I remember very well in 2000 when Li Na not only won a gold medal but became the first Olympic medalist whose name could be read directly from the Periodic Table.
Au contraire, mes ami.
For Dubya, they were powdery political manna from heaven, arriving at just the right time (when people were threatening to stop being terrified & enraged, & start realizing how Bush’s sacred TWOT was becoming a political football) & to just the right addressees (uppity liberal media figures & a Democrat pol) … cue up the new wave of mass-panic & robust duct-tape sales … then one of the networks (I’ll take a shot in the dark & guess it wasn’t FOX) got someone from an independant lab to analyze the contents & OOPSY – they found out the stuff in the envelopes was undoubtedly US Army weapons-grade, & thus either black-market or black-ops. It was from Fort Bragg or Dix – they were able to pin it down that well due to its unique characteristics, & the simple fact that not very many places on earth can make it that high-powered & finely granulated. That expose was the last story on the anthrax letters, & noone in the media has seen fit to revisit it since then. Period. That story literally evaporated from one day to the next, & by some miracle of happenstance, the attacks themselves stopped at the same time.
Don’t you just LOVE happy endings?
2 Words:
NORTHWEST PASSAGE
The liberal media worship of Obama will not convince us in the heartland. He is a big phony and possibly the antichrist.
The fact is, I’m an idiot. I just looked it up, and apparently the antichrist is supposed to be a big jew-jewby.
The fact is, Obama is instead possibly Baron Samedi.
Gary Ruppert as The Heartland… We find our hero carefully watching over a playground to make sure the littlest angels of the Midwest are able to play unaccosted. He has introduced to them a pretend game of his own making, called “Abu Ghraib.” However, something is wrong- his secret identity has been discovered! Only his arrest and the online publishing of his image as a sexual predator could have kept The Heartland down! But now he’s back, as everyone has legally been made aware, so shake in your shoes, Liberals! You too, minors!
…Li Na not only won a gold medal but became the first Olympic medalist whose name could be read directly from the Periodic Table.
…you make me laugh!!!… out loud!!!
Dagnab, how could I forget Mr. Uncut himself, Jeff Gannon!
He said he was a journalist, but we all know journalists would have been on this story like a a big shaggy dog on a plate of spaghetti.
Journalists would have found out how he got press credentials, who vouched for him in the White House, and who he might have been playing hide-the-gherkin with that led to this “contact.”
But I guess there is no real difference between journalists and prostitutes.
What isn’t in doubt is that these public servants acted in good faith, and their efforts are one reason the country hasn’t been attacked again.
We had a saying in the Air Force – “One oh-shit! cancels a hundred attaboys!”
Once you’ve let the worst terrorist attack in American history happen on your watch, no amount of we-haven’t-been-attacked-since is going to make up for it.
What my opponents fail to address is how under my leadership, our organization’s entire bank account was cleaned out by embezzlers, but it has not happened again!
…you make me laugh!!!… out loud!!!
Hee hee – I’m such a geek, whenever I saw her name on the TV I couldn’t think of anything else.
Is Al Qa’ida supposed to follow up 9 freaking 11 with, what, robbing a couple of convenience stores? Blowing up a post office?
If you were a terrorist and your guys had pulled off the biggest, most spectacularly horrifying attack ever against history’s most armed hyperpower, would you follow that with something lesser?
Susan of Texas said,
July 2, 2008 at 0:06
Hey, we had Bush for years as governor before he spread to the rest of the US like a syphyilitic disease. Molly Ivins, God bless her, warned everyone what Bush was like and what the country was getting itself into.
Ramen. One Molly Ivins was (and still is) worth more than all those hideous inside-the-beltway gasbags piled end to end.
Great job, Brad, I thoroughly enjoyed it. How you have the intestinal fortitude to revisit the house o’ horrors that is Bush II, I’ll never know.
Why don’t you far-left loons just admit that President Bush has kept this Country safe and prevented another terror attack?
Because it doesn’t serve your purpose which is for the left to take control of the Country. For as long as Americans realize the truth, that Conservative policies such as the Patriot Act, Guantanamo Bay and an aggressive foriegn policy against terror have prevented another attack, Americans will continue to support the Republicans.
But if the liberals with the help of their allies in the msm and academia convince Americans that President Bush and Conservatism is the source of all the worlds evils then liberals will ascend to power. Which can only happen through deciet and the spinning of the truth.
“Bush Derangement Syndrome”: how conservatives project their 17-year-long obsession with Bill Clinton’s cock onto liberals.
Safe “after” 9/11, I assume you mean? After allowing the worst terrorist attack in US history to happen on his watch? Safe–as in, *after* getting a memo while on one of his (record-setting) vacations? The memo that said, “OSAMA BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE U.S.”? And specifically mentioned using jet airliners? The airliners that condi rice later said “nobody could have predicted” would be used as weapons? The attack he ignored until it was too late, then blamed “poor intelligence” for allowing to happen?
You feel “safe”? What are you, three fucking years old?
You people are so sad.
Let me guess. If there’s no terrorist attack they’ll say “See! Look how the Republicans are protecting us!”
If there is another terrorist attack they’ll say “See! This proves we need the Republicans to protect us!”
It’s the old “Heads I win, tails you lose” game.
Another fauxtroll?
All right already!
I’ll buy the lemon presser for the newlyweds!
Another fauxtroll?
Yeah no kidding. Seriously, it’s getting old.
Erik Pontoppidan said,
July 2, 2008 at 2:49
The fact is, what? I couldn’t hear you over all the fapping noise you’re making.
It is imperitive for the sake of our Nation that John McCain be elected President in November.
Justice John Paul Stevens is 89 years hold and will either croak or step down very soon. And when he does the man who becomes President will appoint the next Supreme Court Justice.
America saw what happened last month, when the Supreme Court foolishly and unconstitutionally ruled that terrorists captured on the battlefield cannot be held indefinately and must be given access to American civilian courts.
Americans are outraged and will show their outrage at the ballot box this November by overwhelmingly electing John McCain. My hope is that McCain appoints a strict constuctionist like Ted Olsen or Miguel Estrada to the High Court.
Then finally this insanity of giving constitutional rights to terrorists will end.
The Constitution was written to protect the rights of American citizens ONLY! Foreign terrorists are exempt from the Constution’s safeguards. This recent Supreme Court ruling was an impeachable offense and the five “oracles in robes” who voted for this monstrosity should be removed from the bench.
My hope is that McCain appoints a strict constuctionist like Ted Olsen or Miguel Estrada to the High Court.
Erik Estrada is more qualified. Than either of those two wingnuts, or Justice Scaliawag, for that matter.
“Safe “after” 9/11, I assume you mean? After allowing the worst terrorist attack in US history to happen on his watch?”
Which would never have happened in the first place if President Clinton had just accepted the Sudanese offer and taken Bin Laden whom they were willing to give us.
It is imperitive for the sake…
Apparently, proper spelling is for elitists.
Erik. You’re going to have to be more specific.
What KIND of pie do you like? There’s fruit pies, like berry, cherry and apple.
There’s meat pies.
There’s cream pies, like banana and chocolate.
Dude. All this ranting about pie is just silly. Let’s follow it up now, hokay?
mikey
Why don’t you extremist left moonbats just admit that President Bush has kept this Country safe as can be seen from the Fact that this Summer’s Natural Disasters have been far less severe, and the Government Response far less inept, than was the Case with Katrina?
Because it doesn’t serve your Purpose which is for the Left to take Control of the Country. For as long as Americans realize the Rruth, that Conservative Policies such as the Clean Air Act, the Unflooded Cities Initiative and an aggressive meteorological Policy against the Weather Underground have prevented another Major Disaster of Biblical Proportions, Americans will continue to support the Republicans.
Apparently, proper spelling is for elitists.
That seems to be part of the fauxtroll shtick, I’ve noticed.
The airliners that condi rice later said “nobody could have predicted” would be used as weapons?
Especially when it had already been tried once in 1994.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_705
Which would never have happened in the first place if President Clinton had just accepted the Sudanese offer and taken Bin Laden whom they were willing to give us.
You know, of course, that the 9/11 Commission found zero evidence that ever happened. And yet every numbnutz like you who trumpets that bullshit as though it were true squealed “wag the dog!” when Clinton actually bombed Sudan two years after the mythical offer.
Valentin Löscher said,
July 2, 2008 at 3:10
Oh, honestly.
Jason Ambrose doesn’t eat shit. Jason Ambrose picks the peanuts and corn kernels out of teh shit, and munches on those.
If only Bill Clinton had followed Reagan’s example and given billions of dollars and weapons and diplomatic protection for bin Laden’s allies to keep waging a terrorist war for Islamic fundamentalism and drug dealing, maybe bin Laden wouldn’t have felt like taking advantage of the stupidest, laziest, most cowardly President in U.S. history.
Unfortunately, as it stands, under Clinton we had 2 World Trade Centers, a 5-sided Pentagon, 0 planes hijacked into targets, and 1 city named New Orleans free of corpses left to rot in the streets.
Under George W. Bush Jr., we have 0 World Trade Centers, a rebuilt Pentagon, 4 planes hijacked into targets and 0 cities names New Orleans free of corpses left to rot in the streets.
When Bush Jr. was running away from the 9/11 attacks and hiding at Air Force bases, that’s when I think Unka Dick laid out the program, that if Bush Jr. ever wanted to distract the country from noticing that he had been the biggest failure ever, he’d have to do exactly what Unka Dick told him, and that was to attack, attack, attack, and blame Democrats for what he himself had caused.
History will have one thing to say about GWB: “Where was John Hinckley when we really needed him?”
ha ha ha! was that before
WhitewaterVinceFosterTravelgateMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonica
WhitewaterVinceFosterTravelgateMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonica
WhitewaterVinceFosterTravelgateMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonicaMonica
BlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjob
BlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjob
BlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjob
BlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjob
BlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjobBlowjob
and impeachment, or after?
For eight year’s it was Bill Clinton’s COCK COCK COCKY COCK COCK.
BILL CLINTON’S COCK RULES THE UNIVERSE!!!1!
And 8 years later It’s still Bill Clinton’s fault!
Ha ha ha ha!!!!!!
“I will restore dignity to the white house.” -George W. Bush
And he woulda, too, if not for BILL CLINTON’S COCK!!!!!!!!!!
Unka Dick laid out the program when Unka Dick’s VP selection committee selected Unka Dick.
It’s been straight down the toilet ever since.
Red said,
“History will have one thing to say about GWB: “Where was John Hinckley when we really needed him?”
I hope the Secret Service reads this.
Oh, some of these fauxtrolls are way better than they have been recently. The Garys are still bad though.
It doesn’t matter: I’m filled with poutrage and feel totally victibitionized, and al cryda if I wanna.
ittdgy: I think that Unka Dick was leading the agenda from the moment he realized what a manipulable sap Bush Jr. was, no doubt; but I think it was on Bush Jr’s running-scared flights away from The Pet Goat bad place that Bush Jr. had some very, very, very interesting dialogue with Unka Dick that we will unfortunately never know about.
Because the Secret Service doesn’t care about people making actual threats when there’s makers of hypothetical statements or wishful thinkers to track down!
I think you’re right.
Immature people always cling to someone stronger… Jesus, Cheney, Barney.
Yeah, not very smart, Red. Tool.
BTW, thanks for ruining Alertnet, Brad. Fucking thing won’t load and I was only at number eight when it started ignoring (same as “Not Responding”) my humble computer’s request for some ones and fucking zeros.
Either way, I was already mad midway through No. 9, so I guess this downtime gives me a chance to hide the breakables.
Meh.
OK. I read it and all I can do is bow in Brad’s general direction. *appropriately bows* Other than that? Ugh! Granted, I larfed quite a bit while reminiscing over the last 8 years, but Ugh! none-the-less.
Seriously, that’s a fan-fucking-tastic piece. Masterpiece indeed.
I apologize for nothing.
I have no sense of delicate comedic balance.
That’s why I’m blue.
OT, but since Doctor Missus Marita and others requested updates on the battle royale now brewing between me and my employer…I’ve done some more digging, and here’s what I’ve found: under FLSA provisions, he would not only be required to pay me back pay, but would also be subject to “liquidated damages” in an amount equal to the back pay. He could also come in for a fine of up to $10,000 for the FLSA violation. That puts his exposure at over $100,000.
Then there’s the issue of the IRS, which may determine that my fellow “independent contractor”, his drinking buddy, is ALSO an employee, since he also doesn’t work for anyone else. Since he has paid him a lot more than he has been paying me, that would add at least another $25K to his exposure…and then there would be the issue of the equal pay statutes.
It just keeps getting better.
Jennifer, you rock.
Has Alternet been Dugg’d or whatever the most current term for “completely swamped with traffic”, or is it just me?
Dammit, you go, grrrlll.
I remember a time before “trial lawyer” was some kind of epithet to paint anybody who challenged corporate hegemony as some kind of criminal thug, where they were much more likely to be taking the cases of just plain folks like us and figuring out how to overcome all the inherent bias in the system.
You just take it, tuck your head, and run with it, young lady….
mikey
Not just you. I haven’t been able to access it and still haven’t read Brad’s piece. Maybe Cheney ordered his flying internet monkeys to overwhelm the site in a desperate attempt to protect Bush’s sterling reputation.
Oh yeah?
Well MY flying monkeys engaged cheney’s flying monkeys in aerial monkey combat high over alternet. And I gotta be honest with ya. When I speak of my flying monkey’s “Tail Guns” it’s ugly. And smelly.
The feces flew in the thin atmosphere over the vast wasteland that is the Intert00bz, and many monkeys were lost.
It was a close run thing. But ultimately? Cheney’s monkeys didn’t have what it takes….
mikey
…they excel at many summer olympics events including diving…
Now I thought that was Italains, Portuguese, S.Americans and other swarthy types!
You know, of course, that the 9/11 Commission found zero evidence that ever happened. And yet every numbnutz like you who trumpets that bullshit as though it were true squealed “wag the dog!” when Clinton actually bombed Sudan two years after the mythical offer.
Indeed. It’s a kind of formative experience in modern American public discourse that, in a moment where the Republicans were challenged to confront a post-Soviet world from a position of strength, they couldn’t stop obsessing over Bubba’s penis for long enough to give it any thought.
They’re like teenagers without hormones as an excuse.
Why don’t you extremist socialist tosspots just admit that Darth Vader has kept this Empire safe as can be seen from the thesis that this Summer’s acts of god have been far less severe, and the Government Response far less judgmental, than was the FACT with Katrina & the waves?
Because it doesn’t serve your homosexual agenda which is for the Moonies to take Control of the Grand Dutchy. For as long as Luxembourgers realize that Ruth; the harbinger of death, as well as psudo socialist policies such as the Clean Air Act, the gay drug act, and the hurricane stabilization act will impact the Heartland in ways we can only dream off, arf arf….
The only positive thing I can say about this administration is that they have redefined the meaning of “Worst President Ever” from simply indicating ineffectiveness to implying active stupidity.
I will happily admit to being an extremist socialist tosspot if it means someone can get me backstage passes to that gay drug act. I hear they rock.
Katrina & The Waves
Love the name. Music needs more cowbell, or fuzzy geetars, or sumpin’.
Many flying monkeys are killed and many more are soiled forever. I have no yoghurt.
Mr. Bush has not protected the monkeys, too many have died. Mr. Cheney rubs his hands and talks like a Penguin which is a dirty smelly animal.
But they are strong manly men and will protect us, now. They have learned from their mistakes and will do their best for us. They like puppies which are soft lovable animals.
I think that the marzipan cherries were stale. Why did so many monkeys have to die.
Because it doesn’t serve your purpose which is for the left to take control of the Country
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Well, since Red brought it up…
Anyone remember a few years back, there was that assassination attempt scare thing when Bush was in some Europe place and a dude tossed a grenade on stage? The story waffled back and forth as to if the grenade was live or dud/fake; I seem to recall reading that the eventual forensic result concluded it was a real grenade that simply didn’t go off. By that point, of course, the news cycle had shifted and no one was paying attention.
But, yeah, there was an attempt on Bush’s life.
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
Heh, they’re just pooing themselves over the fact that they had control of the country and pissed it away. The rich ones are richer, but the trench-trolls are left with nothing but their soiled drawers. I’d grin about it if they hadn’t caused so much senseless destruction and misery in their pathetic attempts to rule.
So Valentin: just too subtle? Or not subtle enough?
I have a suggestion for another feature: 10 moments which, if they happened during another administration would have been multiweek or multimonth scandals, but in this one they lasted for a day, if that.
The first two would be George Deutsch, the journalism school dropout, getting appointed as a political commissar to NASA and telling them what words they can and cannot say in scientific memos (“you must refer to the Big Bang as a ‘theory'”), and Karl Rove getting appointed Katrina czar.
Someday everythings’s gonna be different . . .
Till then, I’m looking forward to reading this (when the traffic starts to die down).
ifthethunder……
Stuck in my mind from a joke back round the time of hurricane Katrina;
“They are holding a benefit concert for the victims, Sting is in, so is Elton John & Madonna, but President Bush has told Karina and the Waves to sod off..”
And sadly enough, i also remember dancing to the band way back in the day….
Immature people always cling to someone stronger… Jesus, Cheney, Barney.
Well, in the case of Barney anyway let’s hope he’s learned to cling a little tighter.
Also, this.
I truly hope that reporter was quickly and thoroughly punished for making Our Commander In Chief look like a jerk, which he totally is not.
Also, more evidence of the liberal bias in the dreaded emm-ess-emm. Did you read CNN’s whatchamacallit at the bottom?
Ha ha ha CNN and your evil anti-american attempts at making Dear Leader look insensitive towards the suffering of the shades-dependent.
Remember when they lost the 2006 elections and Gary disappeared for a whole month?
The fact is, I was serving time in prison.
The fact is, I blow goats…yummy.
Remember when they lost the 2006 elections and Gary disappeared for a whole month?
That was pretty awesome. So was Ace’s meltdown on TBogg’s comment thread the day the new Congress was sworn in.
I’m just glad Tiger survived WWIV with mutant telepathic powers. Or did he have them when he still lived with the Brady Bunch?
What does it mean that Bush’s most awesomely bad moment is also his gayest? Well, his chest-bumping cadet moment may have been his gayest, but Mission Accomplished was his most disingenuous gay moment, in that he was playing at being butch when he’s really femme.
Could it be that Mission Accomplished is the apex of awfulness in part because it so completely expresses Bush’s failure as an integrated personality, a brokenness that is at the very heart of all of his failures as a leader? The closeted personality of the administration — it’s secrecy, it’s refusal to account for its whereaabouts, its smirking lies that seriptitiously confirm “open secrets” — find in Mission Accomplished its moment of triumph when pretending becomes reality. Somewhere over the rainbow, the little boy masters his girlish feelings to become the image of a real man; the cheerleader at last becomes the star quarterback. Dreams really do come true.
If Bush were able to come to terms with his homosexuality earlier in life he may never have been driven to keep the company he keeps. He probably would have been a more decent person and we might have been spared not only the fabulously embarassing Mission Accomplished photo-op, but also all of the vicious, terrified, deceitful waste it was meant to vanquish.
Don’t forget the fake turkey
Fake Turkey’s Don’t Die
http://www.quickrob.com/weblog/?p=1414
Here is the correction issued by the New York Times, in 2004:
Corrections
Published: July 11, 2004
An article last Sunday about surprises in politics referred incorrectly to the turkey carried by President Bush during his unannounced visit to American troops in Baghdad over Thanksgiving. It was real, not fake.
But why let facts get in the way of mental breakdown.
But why let facts get in the way of mental breakdown.
Yeah. Cuz there were totally WMDs over there, and Saddam was totally a threat to global peace, etc. etc.
Tell you what. We’ll let you have your turkey fact. You’ve just got to admit that we were right about, let’s say, everything else.
Thanks for playing.
One prop turkey does not a breakdown make, pumpkin seed. “Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving plate … A contractor had roasted and primped the turkey to adorn the buffet line, while the 600 soldiers were served from cafeteria-style steam trays, the officials said. They said the bird was not placed there in anticipation of Bush’s stealthy visit, and military sources said a trophy turkey is a standard feature of holiday chow lines.”
It was a prop he grabbed, a real turkey roasted for show, and it was as much theater as the rest of his presidency.
Hm, so I guess the narrative shifts from “President displays fake turkey to troops” to “President displays real turkey, keeps it away from troops”. Yes, that’s much better.
Katrina really illustrated the fucked up relationship between BushCo and Faux News. Faux spent days squealing with joy over rumors of violence and fuzzy helicopter video of black people stealing shit, while the administration took every word as gospel truth. The circle jerk resulted in a phenomenon on a whole different level than incompetence.
It seemed as if BushCo was merely dragging its feet at first, but that seemed to evolve into a principled stand against helping the victims that Faux had deemed undeserving. The longer the Administration went without helping, the more hateful Faux became.
Sadly, at that time being a loyal Republican Bush meant ignoring any media not owned by Rupert Murdoch and the Reverend Moon. Those who strayed over to see Brian Williams and Anderson Cooper saw real human suffering the likes of which the most steely of corporate-sponsored cogs could not shrug off.
Dude, you forgot one! The White House vandalism story!
Remember? Remember how the Clinton staff had left obscene graffiti and had stolen all kinds of fixtures and cut hundreds of wires and destroyed a bunch of keyboards in a fit of pique?
Who’s got money down on whether or not all the “O”s on the computer keyboards will be gone the morning of 01/20/09?
I want odds.
Did anyone mention “Free speech zones” yet?
Liberals, what do you make of the fact that Obama is running neck-and-neck in the polls with McCain (the latest shows him with a +5 lead, statistically a dead heat)?
Bush and the Republicans have become a monstrous hate figure in this and other liberal echo chambers, but this hatred isn’t translating to the general population. If I were an Obama supporter, the first thing I’d do is look for myself on this page and wonder why I’m not listed. The second thing I’d do is worry that the long campaign season can only tarnish Obama’s reputation, as his shady Chicago background and racist, extremist associates come to light.
But let’s go back to my first point – why is that if Republicans are so hated and discredited, that McCain is statistically tied with Obama? Don’t kid yourselves, liberals, I know what your answer to this question is. I’m going to really enjoy reading it, though, because you can’t help yourselves.
Bush and the Republicans have become a monstrous hate figure in this and other liberal echo chambers, but this hatred isn’t translating to the general population.
Huh?
Hey, what happened to Paul L? Got pissed off that the crap he was peddling wouldn’t sell here and went back to the Kingdom of Idiots? I wanted a swing at the fake turkey too. Oh well, let’s see what Truthy has for us:
I’m not sure where Truthy’s getting his numbers. I’m guessing he’s using the Clintonista favourite Real Clear Politics which has Obama nationally at +5.4
What he fails to mention is that RCP’s Electoral College prediction right now is Obama 304. Based on his performance through the primaries, I personally like Poblano at 538. He has Obama at 312 Electoral College votes. When Clinton dropped, it was a dead heat, but then Barack got the nomination bump, which is levelling out now. So, it looks like that +5 rating is worth 60% of the electoral college.
Well, that plan certainly worked well for Hillary.
Umm, right. Your first point is that McCain is losing – I have to say that I’m not terribly upset with that. Oh wait, your saying that McCain should be getting slaughtered and because he isn’t then the country is really full of neo-cons.
Say, haven’t you been trolling here for months telling us that the black muslim corrupt racist has no chance against the mavericky war hero? And now your precious JiSM3 is going down the drain with a projected hundred point electoral college vote defeat.
We know the story already. The guy who’s held the Chair of the Senate committee in charge of media mergers gets fawning treatment by the press. So sure, it’s an uphill climb. But in case you haven’t noticed, old man JiSM3 is such a lousy candidate, and GOP positions are so outrageously retarded, that America does actually prefer the racist corrupt black muslim empty suit with no experience and might be the Anti-Christ.
Is that the answer you were looking for?
tigrismus said [a long time ago],
I didn’t know a lot of the theater stuff examples folks are bringing up in this thread, which would also make for an interesting article. Don’t forget the fake turkey, the fake soldiers photoshopped into his TV ad, and the scripted “townhall” meetings.
This is an excellent idea. It should be one of the Sadly’s first book-length publication.
It all started at the beginning, when The Paper of Record (NYT) ran a photo of the inauguration which showed the president walking on a street, presumably walking the route of the inauguration parade, a tradition started by Jimmy Carter.
But Bush did no such thing. If you recall, he drove through a gauntlet of protesters. He stayed in his limo, which was egged by Angry Americans.
The picture was a staged fake. The president lied, and the newspaper repeated the lie.
Pants on fire, motherfuckers. (There’s your working title right there.)
Your John Birch Society link on page 5 is broken. I was all curious.
Don’t water down the clever and snarky and funneh to sound more serious.
/constructive criticism
While we’re digging in history, anyway, and I have to face how much time I’ve spent on following this crap… *sigh*…Sorry about advertising for my own blog. But(!) it was the only place I could find a recording of a radio play Larry Gelbart wrote a while back – “Abrogate”. It was curiously prescient in 2006, and it’s even more incredible now. 😀 Enjoy.
If you list the 100 worst bad moments of ANY U.S. Presidency, how many would NOT be from this one? This Administration may have more screw-ups than all the predecessors combined.