BottleOfBlog

The Stupidest Mutherfucker Who Ever Lived, Part II

Jerry very kindly sent me the link to the official transcript of the dumbest speech ever.  And I know I said I was looking forward to mocking it in detail, but I’m not.

It was so dumb and empty, and disingenuous, and pointless that there really isn’t even any reason to mock it in detail.

It was a great big zero and it went over with the nation like a fat joke at a Weight Watcher’s convention.

God bless Americans--we were, once again, appalled at the absolute bafoon who's napping in the White House.

I understand the point of that dumbass speech—the real reason Bush gave the speech.  Because it wasn’t to tell the American people what our plans or goals in Iraq are.  It wasn’t to give the American people some straight talk about Iraq.  It wasn’t even to reassure Americans or convince them that their sacrifice in blood and money is worthwhile.

The point of that stupid speech was that Bush’s approval ratings are in the toilet and Bush’s Iraq fiasco is getting in the way of Bush’s assault on the progressive tax code and Social Security.

And some idiot thought it would be helpful for the ol’ Straight Shooter to get on live Tee Vee, say “September 11th” and “terra” about a thousand times, and then Bush could get back to the bidness of his administration, which is looting the national treasury.

So I understand that.

What I think is funny is how stupid that idiot is.  I think it's funny how dumb that idiot--and by that idiot, I mean, Karl Rove--really is.  After all this time, after years in the White House, Karl Rove really thinks that Bush's "successes" are due to Bush.  Or that they're due to Rove, himself.

And even the "liberal" media and even a lot of democrats have made this really, really dumb and obvious fool--Rove-- out to be some kind of evil genius, when, in reality, he’s a total putz.

I’m not saying he isn’t evil.

But a genius?

Christ, the shit he does is just fucking laughable.  If that squirrely prick tried to sell you a car the same way he tries to sell you politicians or “policies”, you’d walk to work every day of your life.

Rove is a one trick pony.  And it’s a good trick the first time you pull it—I’ll gladly admit that.  But there’s absolutely no reason why, in the home of the First Amendment, that you should be able to pull the same stupid trick for like thirty years without all three major networks, the New York Times, the Washington Post, USA Today, every magazine in print, and every single small, medium, or large market sized newspaper, radio or television station in the country proclaiming, “ROVE UP TO HIS ONE TRICK AGAIN” every time this ugly, evil, little retarded garden gnome does it.

Sure, sure—the first time he pulled it, it was pretty clever.  It was scummy and dishonest, but, you have to admit, it was clever.  Maybe even brilliant.  But five or six times down the road?  It isn’t clever or brilliant.  It’s just fucking laughably obvious.

Or it would be, if the stupidest people on God’s green earth--the "liberal" media--would bother to take time out from chattering away imbecilicly about Michael Jackson, and missing white women, and the genius of Karl Rove to even mention it.

And what’s Karl’s one trick?  I'll tell you:  He does something incredibly underhanded and nasty to his own candidate.  Then he sits back and expresses moral indignation that his candidate’s opponent could do such a thing.

That's right.  He attacks his own candidate, and then pretends his opponent did it.  You don't believe me?

He did it in Texas.  He did it in Alabama.  He did it to Gore.  He did it to Kerry.  And I’d bet any amount of money he did it to Dan Rather.  He's probably done it dozens of times.

He does it in every election he’s ever been involved in.  It's the same thing always.  And why does it keep working? 

Because no—none, zero—Americans are aware of this fact.  The incredibly "liberal",  biased media has not, and will not report any of this as a fact.

I don’t know why.  I guess because they’re so darn busy trying to undermine this Preznit’s War On Terra, or destroy the morale of American soldiers, or expose the corporate greed and corruption that runs rampant in the companies that sign their paychecks.

You have to admit, these insane right-wingers are really on to something about this liberal media bias!  There’s no doubt every six or seven figure paid, know-nothing talking head at NBC would like nothing more than to bring down their employer—General Electric.  That would be a super career move!

There’s no doubt that a multi-millionaire like Dan Rather would have liked nothing more than to burn down an incredibly conservative corporation like Viacom, which wrote his monthly paychecks.

There’s no doubt that all those beret wearing, fifth columnists over at ABC would like nothing more than to destroy the incredibly conservative Disney corporation, which pays them so handsomely for reading shit off a teleprompter for a living.

So you can see, these crazy right wingers are probably right.  The “mainstream media” is just full of anti-Bush, anti-big bidness liberals!

So that makes sense.  That’s settled.  And I can get back to my original point, which is:  Karl Rove is an idiot.

Yeah, yeah, he’s got his one big trick.  Which is stupid and woud be laughable if the “mainstream media” would bother to inform Americans about it.

And, yes, he does do one other thing.  And that thing is really horrendous.  And the “mainstream liberal, biased media” won’t talk about it either.  The one other thing Karl does is take his opponent’s strength—whatever it is that’s most admirable about his opponent—and attack it in the most offensive way possible.

You work with children?  Karl Rove will spread rumors that you’re a child molester.  You’ve got a chest full of medals?  Karl Rove will accuse you of cowardice under fire.

It’s what he does.  It’s what he's always done.  He learned it from the great ones, the Nixon scumbags.  And, yet, your “liberal” media, to this day, still will not report it.

They’ll only tell you what a “political genius” he is. 

Because the media is so “liberal”.

They worship him.

But, I'm here to tell you: Karl Rove is a dumbass.  Make no mistake about it.  He is a dumb, mean prick.  And Democrats should be beating his stupid, cro magnon skull in on everything.

Never mind what depths he’s willing to sink to in order to win an election.  Never mind his one big trick. 

People!  Remember:  Rove's first presidential election, he lost.  Remember that he’s been running the political arm of the White House since day one and Bush’s approval ratings have always, from a minority of voters, gone down.

Always.

The only thing Bush has ever had going for him was that, on his watch, he let two dozen psychopathic freaks kill a couple thousand Americans on live television.

That’s it.

That's the Rove magic!  That's the genius!  Three thousand Americans got killed while Bush and Karl Rove were trying to figure out how to get rid of the estate tax!  They--both of them--are brilliant!

There is not one single other thing ever that Bush has said or done that Americans approve of aside from letting a couple of thousand Americans die in the Trade Towers while Bush bolted like a terrified rabbit to some deep, dark hole in Nebraska.

And since that day, when ninety plus percent of Americans backed the Preznit, Bush’s approval numbers have gone down. 

And since the original panic of September 11th, every time Bush appears on television, his approval numbers go down.

You know why?  Because Americans don’t like Bush.  And they don’t like what he stands for.

They never did.

And Rove, this admittedly evil, but hardly genius little freak, is so dumb, like the rest of the Bush administration, that he thinks any time Bush’s poll numbers go in the toilet, all the American people need is to see this sweaty, awkward, twitchy freak and be reminded of September 11th, and they’ll all rally around behind their “popular” president.

And Rove, this supposed political genius, has never noticed that every single time the “popular war Preznit” has appeared before the American people, since looting exploded in Baghdad, Bush’s approval ratings have fallen.

Rove, this political mastermind, has never noticed that the more the American people see of George W. Bush, the less they like or trust him.

Rove, this “turd blossom”, seems to have no idea that nothing either he nor George W. Bush did made Americans rally behind the Republican party or it’s awful modern agenda.

Rove's a genius? 

Rove's the idiot who came up with the stupid ass aircraft carrier, big victory banner, codpiece fiasco that will, for all eternity, be remembered as the dumbest political stunt a president ever pulled.

Rove is no genius.  He isn't even moderately intelligent.  He isn't even smart enough to know why he and the Shrub are where they are.  He's that dumb.

Americans supported this awful president because they thought their country was under attack.  That’s it.  On September 12th, 2001, if we had had a luke warm water bottle sitting in the Oval Office, it would have had a ninety percent approval rating and two hundred and eighty million offers to warm it up.

And these idiots, most of all Rove, keep thinking that they worked some kind of magic!  These morons keep thinking that they’re political geniuses.  These rank amateurs keep thinking they had anything at all do with anything.

Well, they didn’t.  And they don’t. 

And it’s pathetic that they keep on trying to recapture the ol’ magic by invoking September 11th.  It’s pathetic that the people who are running our executive branch have not only so little understanding of how the world works, but also of why they’re even in the White House.

Rove’s no political genius.  He’s just a nasty, shameless, vicious dumbass, who, after spending his whole life in politics, is too stupid to even understand why he’s in the big house.

He’s a clown.  Obvious and without ideas.  Laughable, if he weren’t so destructive. 

And that speech proved it for once and for all.

The Ministry Of Disinformation

Ellen brings up this kind of interesting thing:

A co-worker today told me she use to like [Bush]. Now she thinks he's sneaky. I felt pretty good about that. She's very "deep South" and very opinionated.

And I say it’s interesting because I had a conversation with a guy today and it was about what Americans really think about the lousy Bush administration.

And, like Ellen, I know a ton of Republicans who no longer like Bush.  I know a ton of Republicans who not only didn’t think he would beat Kerry, but more than a few of them voted for Kerry.

They just thought Bush was a total disaster.

And I live in one of the most conservative towns in the entire country--Bush actually came to my town twice during the election year.

And today, I got online and I saw this CNN poll, and the overwhelming response was that people thought Bush’s speech blew:

And there was another one on MSNBC with nearly the exact same results, but I can’t find it now, and it’s too much trouble to keep looking for it.

And so I remarked to this guy I was having lunch with about this poll, and he said when he signed onto America Online this morning there was the exact same poll with nearly the exact same numbers.

Over seventy percent of Americans are appalled at Bush.

Now I know these are just online polls.  And they’re subject to all kinds of hanky panky—people voting again and again, web sites linking to the polls to encourage mass voting, whatever.

But, then again, they’re exposed to this kind of hanky panky from both parties.  And unless anyone has any kind of evidence that one party has more internet access than the other, or one party is more adept at manipulating online polls than the other, frankly, even if there is foul play, I figure it’s a wash—Republicans cheat, Democrats cheat.

The polls end up pretty close to the truth in the end.

And this reminded me of a lot of the internet polls during the election year that showed Kerry whipping Bush.  And the exit polls which showed Kerry beating Bush.

And I just got this terrible paranoia. 

I mean, everytime Americans get to voluntarily offer their opinions with no middle man--no Republican dominated middle man--like seventy percent of them disapprove of Bush and whatever he’s doing.

Everytime our corporately controlled media reports on how we Americans feel about Bush, we hear numbers like just over half of us disapprove.  Nearly fifty percent of us approve.

And I just wonder:  why the discrepancy? 

You study statistics, you understand the margins of error, and there’s no reason that these online polls should be so different than what Gallup, a corporation whose CEO is a Republican, tells us.

Or what ABC, owned by Disney, or CBS, owned by Viacom, or NBC, owned by General Electric tell us their poll results show.

Statisticly, they should be the same.

And, yet, these direct internet polls are so different than what our conservative, corporately controlled media keeps telling us their polls reflect.

It’s strange.

The guy I was having lunch with is not a Che Guevera, beret wearing, bandoleir wrapped, pinko, subversive like me.  He’s a guy who showed up in a Mercedes E 55, AMG model--with 500 horsepower, and lumbar massaging seats.  Shit,  he’s got paintings hanging in his living room that are worth more than my whole house.

And not only did he agree with me, but he was the one who said it, “I feel like we’re being lied to.  I really feel like we’re being manipulated on a grand scale.”

I feel that way, too.  I feel like not only are we not being told the truth about what we’re doing, but we’re not even being told the truth about how we feel.

We’re not even being told the truth about ourselves.

The Silver Lining

Mary says Pelosi did a good job at discussing Bush's speech.  She might be right.  I don't know.  I didn't watch her.  I couldn't care less.

That was the most pathetic thing I've ever seen a president do.  But only because I can't remember Johnson talking about the great progress we were making in Vietnam.

I'm looking forward to the exact transcript so I can mock it appropriately.

Bush gave this dumb speech because Americans are alarmed at how expensive and bloody this war is, and Americans are alarmed at how long this war might take, and they're disturbed at the continual sunny appraisals they keep getting from the Bush administration despite the obvious chaotic, carnage that continues in Iraq.

So, to counter that, Bush gives a speech full of sunny appraisals.  Bush talks about all the "progress" that is being made.  Bush talks about all the international cooperation and financing that will bring a new and peaceful and democratic Iraq.

It was over the top stupid and ridiculous.  The only thing that could have made it dumber would have been a flight suit, a big victory banner, and a codpiece.

But the worst part about his dumb speech was the way he kept trying to invoke the terror and horror of his glory days.  He kept trying to talk about bombings and death and savagery in cities and towns around the globe, and he kept trying to remind Americans about September 11th.

We won't get into the ridiculousness of equating September 11th to Iraq. 

But it was so pathetic to see him, with his screwed up, uncomfortable smile, and his little black beady eyes trying again and again to scare Americans, to panic Americans, to remind them to be afraid, to be hysterical.

The whole point of his dumb speech seemed to be, "We all need to be very, very afraid.  The way we were.  Back when I was popular.  Anything less, will be a victory for the terrorists."

I don't know what's worse--his absolutely meaningless rhetoric which has nothing to do with actual facts, or his sad, sorry confusion that he can just keep invoking September 11th and people will cheer him.

What an utterly empty, meaningless speech.  What a big zero.  From a man who knows nothing now, and knew even less then.  What a clown.  What a joker.  What a comical bozo.

What an empty suit the Gee Oh Pee foisted on the American people.  And we paid for it on September 11th.  And we paid for it with his looting of the national treasury.  And we're going to pay for it for a dozen years--at least--in Iraq.

This is Reagan's legacy.  Reagan convinced the country that any idiot could be president.  No matter how dumb they were.

A trillion dollars of debt, a couple thousand dead Americans, a stupid and senseless, and expensive quagmire...

Maybe this will be Bush's legacy:  maybe Bush will remind the country that no idiot should ever be president.

(Post post:  anyone remember back in 2000 how the Washington press corps used to mock Al Gore because he always had to be the smartest guy in the room?  As if that was a bad thing?)

MSNBC Finally Gets It Right

Yes, yes it was. 

Dumbest Speech Ever

No wonder he's delivering this speech at Fort Bragg.  Anywhere else, people would just laugh at him.

Depends On What Your Definition Of What A Dick Is

Jesus, I go away for a couple of days and I come back and George Bush is still fucking president!

Don’t you people do anything while I’m gone?

Why has no one stopped this?

In a startling example of mixed messages, Gen. John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Persian Gulf, gave testimony to Congress Thursday that directly contradicted recent statements by the vice president and the secretary of defense. Canada's Globe and Mail reports that Gen. Abizaid "conceded yesterday that the Iraqi insurgency is as strong as it was six months ago, countering declarations by Vice President Dick Cheney that the revolt is 'in its last throes.' "

Yes, yes, it’s funny.  But wait for the money shot!

When asked to explain the contradiction between his earlier statements and those of Gen. Abizaid. Mr. Cheney told CNN it all depends what you mean by "throes."

    "If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period, the throes of a revolution," he said. "The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it's intense because the terrorists understand that if we're successful at accomplishing our objective – standing up a democracy in Iraq – that that's a huge defeat for them.

Har!  Har!  Har!

Hooooo-weeee!

Keee-rist.  I had to sit there for years and listen to halfwit, fullblown bullshitters mock Clinton as “Slick Willy”, as a serial liar, a prevaricator, as a stain on the Presidency…and why?

Because he gave a technically truthful, but intentionally misleading answer in a deposition.  In a case that had already been dismissed for being wholly without merit.

A decision that was overturned by a panel of Republican judges, so that a bunch of Republican financed lawyers could engage on a fishing expedition to delve into anything that might embarrass Bill Clinton.

And so Clinton gave a truthful answer, which was intentionally misleading, and I had to listen to overpaid, under educated, blithering idiots mock Clinton for years about the “depends on the definition of ‘is’” thing.

Sure, sure, Clinton was misleading the court.  And sure, as an attorney, and as President, he shouldn’t have done that.

But it was a poorly phrased question.  I mean, you want to mock somebody, mock Paula Jones’ lawyers.  Christ, they were getting paid an assload of money by Scaiffe and the Gee Oh Pee, and had the assistance of such brilliant legal minds as current United States solicitor Ted Olson and good time, just having fun, Time Magazine cover girl, Ann Coulter!

And all that money, and all that hatred, all that time, and those mental midgets couldn’t be bothered to properly phrase a question in a deposition?  They didn’t have an eighth grader’s brains to pay attention to tense?

Fine.  Whatever.

A hundred million dollars and six years of investigation, and they got him!  They really nailed him down!  Bill Clinton, ladies and gentlemen, had a lousy marriage!

And didn’t want to talk about it.

And Republicans were shocked!  Shocked, I say!  They never heard of such a thing!  Well, they heard about it.  You know, they heard about Ronald Reagan’s divorce, and Rush Limbaugh’s three divorces, and Newt Gingrich’s three divorces, and they heard about Bob Livingston’s affair, and Helen Chenoweth’s many affairs, and Bob Barr’s affairs, and Dan Burton’s affairs, and Henry Hyde’s affairs, and Guiliani’s affair, and Bob Dole’s affair, and even the first George Bush’s affair.

But, aside from that, they never heard of such a thing!

And they were shocked!  Shocked, I say!  And very, very concerned about what the children would think.

But Clinton’s little affair and his little misleading answer in a deposition in a case which had no merit, didn’t get a single, solitary person killed.  His boring answer in his completely silly deposition should have cost the American taxpayers nothing.  Not a single penny.

Though fiscally responsible Republicans made sure his one dumb, irrelevant answer cost the American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars.

And took up thousands of hours of the federal government’s time.  And took up tens of thousands of hours of time from the Eff Bee Eye.

Which could have been much better spent chasing…oh, I don’t know…maybe…fucking terrorists?

And after all that silliness, after all that waste, after all that dumbness, now I have to listen to Dick Cheney, who is like a serial lying machine, lie to the American people that the insurgency is in its last throes and then put a great big cherry bullshit, on top of the whip lying cream which has been used to generously smother a couple of heaping scoops of total steaming horse turds, say, “Hey, it all depends on the definition of ‘throes’”!

Jesus, God, Almighty.  Seven or eight years ago, Clinton played games with tense.  I still have to listen to that boring, silly crapola today.

Cheney has been talking out his ass for the last four years—WMDs, meetings between terrorists and Iraqi agents, the phenomenal progress in the Iraq War—and now he’s saying, “Well, you know, when I say something, you really need to check the dictionary and the thesaurus, to be exactly sure what the heck I’m talking about.”

And this careful, technically true--while intentionally misleading bullshit--has resulted in 1700 dead Americans, over ten thousand seriously wounded Americans, the destruction of the myth of American invincibility, the ravaging of our great military, and hundreds of billions of tax payer dollars spread, willy nilly across the desert.

How many?  We don't even know.  We think we're coming up on three hundred billion.  And Donald Rumsfeld tells us we may be involved in Iraq for a dozen more years.  We're running at about eighty billion dollars a year, or so they tell us.  Even if we withdraw troops, we'll still have them there, we'll still be equipping and training Iraqis...

What is this going to cost the American people?  A trillion dollars???

And we're borrowing that money!  From the Chinese!  Does anyone or everyone see the problem when the bill comes due?  Mind blowing, soul crushing, dream destroying taxes.

Does anyone or everyone see the problem we'll have with dealing with the most expansive, explosive economy in the world?  Total powerlessness.  Nothing.  No say.  No leverage.

On the upside, with the greatest deficits in our lifetime, we Americans can also start looking forward to paying eight or ten dollars a gallon at the pump.

All curtesy of the Gee Oh Pee.  All brought to you by George W. Bush, and his Iraqi grudge match.  Completely fucking around with idiotic dreams of 18th century styled empire at a time when Americans should have been seriously thinking about life in the twenty first century.

But I’m sure the “liberal” media will be all over “Slick Dick”.  I’m sure they’ll spend years mocking his selective choice of words.  And his repeatedly untruthful, shockingly, disturbingly, reality defying appearances on television for the last four years.

On behalf of the ol' Straight Shooter's administration.

And, hey, though that "liberal" media has never done it up till now, don't give up!  They still have plenty of time to do it in the future!

Because, as you finally know, the last throes, are going to go on for about a decade.

The Ugliest American

Can't tell you how amazed I was to read this today:

Karl Rove came to the heart of Manhattan last night to rhapsodize about the decline of liberalism in politics, saying Democrats responded weakly to Sept. 11 and had placed American troops in greater danger by criticizing their actions….

"Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers," Mr. Rove, the senior political adviser to President Bush, said at a fund-raiser in Midtown for the Conservative Party of New York State.

Citing calls by progressive groups to respond carefully to the attacks, Mr. Rove said to the applause of several hundred audience members, "I don't know about you, but moderation and restraint is not what I felt when I watched the twin towers crumble to the ground, a side of the Pentagon destroyed, and almost 3,000 of our fellow citizens perish in flames and rubble."

Why was I so amazed?

Well, I'm a liberal.  And just like Karl Rove, I watched the Trade Towers crumble to the ground, and saw nearly 3000 Americans vanish in a pile of rubble.  I can't speak for Karl Rove, so I don't know if there are any more similarities between me and Karl Rove on September 11th.  I can only speak for me.  And on September 11th, I was absolutely horrified at what I was watching--not just for the absolute senseless, savage nihilism--but because I also knew more than a few people who were actually in those Trade Towers.

And I remember my "liberal" reaction that day.  I remember talking to friends and family, while nearly raking the hair off the top of my head, and I remember my reaction being, "Someone needs to be killed for this.  Whoever did this, needs to be killed.  Today.  If not sooner."

And I remember, on September 20th, going to one of the oddest memorial services I've ever been at.  It was odd because there was no body.  No body would ever be found.  In fact, not even a tiny fragment of a body was ever found.  Nothing.  Not even a single strand of DNA.

So, at that memorial service, all we had were photographs of a really nice young man, my age, one of the youngest partners ever at Cantor Fitzgerald, one of the funniest, nicest guys I'll ever meet, and the very teary, heartbreaking stories from his liberal friends and his liberal family.

I don't remember anyone talking about "therapy".  Maybe I'm wrong.  I was a little upset myself.  But I don't remember a single person talking about indictments or "understanding".  They mostly talked about a wonderful life cut stupidly and senselessly, and cruelly short.  After the service, they mostly talked about catching and killing bin Laden.

So you can probably imagine how horrific it was to hear Bush, who didn't spend September 11th watching the Trade Towers collapse, who didn't worry about people he knew being crushed in the flame and rubble, because Bush was too busy hauling ass to the world's deepest gopher hole in Nebraska, as he said, "just trying to get out of harm's way", say this:

So I don't know where [bin Laden] is.  You know, I just don't spend that much time on him, Kelly, to be honest with you…

And, again, I don't know where he is.  I  --  I'll repeat what I said.  I truly am not that concerned about him.

That was shocking and appalling, even to liberals like me, who apparently, believed in "therapy".  Even though we didn't know it, and never said anything like that.  It was like having a member of your family killed right in front of you and then having the district attorney go on television and say, "Well, I'm not really all that concerned with the actual killer.  I'm more concerned with killing in general.  In fact, as for the actual killer, I don't really even give him that much thought."

Actually, it wasn't like that.  It was exactly that--Mr. Tough On Terra said on live television, about the murderer of nearly 3000 Americans, "I truly am not that concerned about him."

I've never heard a single Democrat say they were not concerned about bin Laden.  Not one.

And I don't remember Democrats or liberals responding "weakly" to the attacks of September 11th.  I remember Democrats saying things like this:

"Tonight, the president asked for our unity. He asked for our support. He asked for our patience. We want President Bush to know -- we want the world to know -- that he can depend on us.

"We will take up the president's initiatives with speed. We may encounter differences of opinion along the way, but there is no difference in our aim. We are resolved to work together, not as Democrats or Republicans, but as Americans. We will do whatever is needed to protect our nation. Nothing is more urgent."

I remember Democrats saying they'd give Bush anything he wanted, even the stupid Patriot Act, to bring bin Laden to justice.  And I remember they not only said it, but they did it.  That's what I remember.

And I also remember being absolutely stunned when Bush and his insane clown posse took that blank check and blind faith and then let bin Laden go, and diverted hundreds of millions of dollars from Afghanistan to pursue their nutty neo-con New American Century dreams in Iraq.

I don't remember Democrats responding weakly.  I don't remember a single one talking about "therapy".  And I certainly don't remember any Democrats diverting the "War On Terra" from bin Laden, the killer of 3000 Americans, to Saddam Hussein, who had no terrorist ties and nothing to do with September 11th.

So where does this absolutely bogus claim that liberals wanted to provide therapy to terrorists come from?  The best I can figure it comes from a very reasonable and intelligent speech Bill Clinton gave at Georgetown University on November 7, 2001:

"Therefore we have to look ahead and say, ok, so we'll win the fight we're in but we also have to create a world where we have more partners and fewer potential terrorists. And how are we going to do that? We have to spread the benefits and shrink the burdens of the 21st century world, number one. Number two, we have to deal with the fact that most terrorists come from places that aren't democracies. And number three, we have to deal with the special challenges presented in the Muslim world, because Islam's our fastest growing religion in America, and we have to lift up the positive forces there, and encourage those with enough courage to stand up for them."

And nutty rightwingers were so out of control and so without restraint at the time, that that entirely sensible speech was viciously attacked by as anti-American and insane, and treasonous.  For an example of how insane and bloodthirsty "conservatives" were at the time, frothing at the mouth--but fun loving!--Time Magazine covergirl and darling of the right Anne Coulter remarked:

"Clinton's prescription for victory was: 'First we have to do more to reduce poverty and create more economic opportunity'...Everyone wishes he'd just go away and stop sending himself botulism out of anthrax envy."

But did Clinton or anyone else ever say we needed to provide therapy for terrorists?  No.  Never.  Not once.  And was what Clinton said so stupid, so naive, so emblematic of what is wrong with liberals?

Well, sometimes I think it might have been stupid.  But only because George W. Bush, the slowest learner who ever lived, agreed with it.  But it took him a couple of years to catch up:

"I don't think you can win [the war on terror]."  [President Bush] went on to say, "I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."

So, Bush eventually agreed with Bill Clinton--though, again, it took Bush two years to figure out what Bill Clinton recognized about a week after September 11th.  Because Bush is not too smart.  And Bush agreed with Clinton, even though Ann Coulter, and Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity and the rest of the idiot right wing mouth pieces had all denounced Bill Clinton and his speech.

And nutty, out of control right wingers' heads should have exploded at hearing their Preznit echo the sentiments of the hated Bill Clinton after they had spent two years believing that what Clinton said in the aftermath of September 11th was naive and stupid, and treasonous.

But their heads remained intact.  Because they're not too smart, either.

And that was the genesis of the ol' "liberals are soft on terra" and want "therapy" for terrorists.  But if you read Clinton's whole speech, you won't find that remark in the speech.  And there was a subsequent speech by Al Gore, which was insanely denounced by out of control right wingers, but you won't find "therapy" in that speech, either.

In fact, you won't find a single liberal or democrat anywhere at anytime suggesting that terrorists needed therapy, not prosecution.

So where the heck does that come from?

George W. Bush!

During the 2004 campaign, Bush dismissed the notion of negotiating with terrorists and said, "You can't sit back and hope that somehow therapy will work and they will change their ways."

And where did George W. Bush get that from? 

Nowhere!

No one ever, ever, ever at any time ever suggested the United States sit back and hope that therapy would change the ways of terrorists.

Bush just made it up.  Nobody ever said it. 

But Bush and the modern Gee Oh Pee are famous for that.  They completely invent a statement that some imaginary "liberal" would say in their bizarre make believe world that exists only in their heads, then they publicly debate and ridicule people who have never existed.

Bush did it all through to 2004.  He even did it live, on the national debates.  And now Rove is quoting the make believe voices in Bush's head to prove an insane point that liberals are more of a threat to America's security than bin Laden.

But don't get me wrong.  Just because this is one of the most insane, offensive, nonsensical pieces of outlandish wing nut gibberish that I've ever heard, doesn't mean Rove isn't sincere. 

I think he is.

Because, Lord knows, Rove and Bush have done more to defeat "liberals" than they've ever done to defeat terrorists.

Republicans Once Again Appalled At What They Keep Voting For; Cry Like Pussies

A heartwrenching tale of lifelong Republicans who are shocked--shocked--to discover that the Republican party cares more about big bidness than just regular ol' folks:

Amid the clank, clatter and fire of the largest natural gas boom ever on public land in the West, a new kind of sagebrush rebellion is stirring. Ranchers, cowboys, small property owners and local government leaders - the core of the Republican base in the Rocky Mountain West - are chafing at the pace and scope of the Bush administration's push for energy development.

Some people are filing lawsuits, challenging federal authority to drill in certain areas. Others are protesting new gas and oil leases…

"The word from Washington is drill, drill, drill, and now they've basically destroyed our ranch," said Tweeti Blancett, a coordinator for George Bush's presidential campaign in San Juan County, N.M. "We've been in a firestorm down here. A lot of Republicans are upset."

The 32,000 acres of public land that Ms. Blancett and her husband, Linn, have long used for grazing cattle is now riddled with gas wells and pipelines. Petroleum byproducts have poisoned the water, she said, killing animals and causing the fertility rate to plummet…

In this valley along the Colorado River, a Bush stronghold all the way to the Utah border and beyond, several counties and small towns have passed resolutions urging the administration to keep the industrial rigs out of some of the remaining wild land…

"We moved out here for peace and privacy, and now they trying to surround us with gas well pads," said Nancy Jacobsen, who owns 47 acres of high country just outside the town of Silt, not far from here…

Ms. Jacobsen said she registered as a Republican in the last election, but now considered herself an independent because of this issue. She said her property value fell by $300,000 in the last assessment because of the nearby gas development…

But the Interior Department came under sharp criticism a few months ago when it tried to auction a new round of natural gas leases in Colorado without telling the surface owners about it. The department blamed an agency Web site that used to post such notices but was down because of security concerns.

The other major issue involves drilling on large pieces of public land that have long been used by outdoor enthusiasts.

"It's tough to beat the federal government," said Gordon Johnston, a lifelong Republican and three-term county commissioner in Sublette County, Wyo. "But there are a lot of us who feel we have to fight them, because they're wrecking this land."

Wow.  You know what I say to that?

Boo--fucking--hoo.

Drill away oil and gas companies!  Drill to your little, blackened, shrivelled up hearts' content!  I hope they put a fucking oil derick right in Tweeti Blancett's living room.

Kind of cold?  Kind of heartless of me?  Puh-lease.  I didn't fucking vote for it.  They did.  They've been voting for it all their lives!  They've been voting for it since Ronald Reagan appointed that lunatic James Watt Secretary of the Interior.  You remember James Watt, don't you?

Interior Secretary James Watt, a Pentecostalist, in discussing environmental concerns, observed, "I don't know how many future generations we can count on until the Lord returns."

That's right, the Republican Secretary of the Interior, under Reagan, said, "Hey, there's no point in conserving anything because the end of the world is at hand."  It's crazy, I know.  It was crazy at the time.  But these lifelong Republicans, who are now crying about oil wells on their property and poisoned wells, they voted for that shit.  And, even though in the twenty five years since crazy James Watt the Lord hasn't returned, they're still voting for that shit today. 

Again, they've been voting for it all their lives.  But, suddenly, what they've been voting for is happening in their back yards!  And what do they say?

"It's tough to beat the federal government," said Gordon Johnston, a lifelong Republican and three-term county commissioner in Sublette County, Wyo. "But there are a lot of us who feel we have to fight them, because they're wrecking this land."

Yeah, it's tough to beat the federal government.  That's why you shouldn't keep voting for it, dumbass.

They're wrecking this land?

Christ, that's the modern Gee Oh Pee all over, isn't it?

They've been wrecking land for my entire life--coastlands, old growth forests, wetlands, rivers, lakes, entire mountains.  Under Bush, the federal government has basically stopped cleaning up SuperFund sites.  There are towns in America with red hot purple goo bubbling up from playgrounds, but these lifelong Republicans didn't notice that--actually, they didn't care--because it wasn't happening in Bush Country.  It wasn't in their backyards, so they didn't care.

The federal government under Bush is "wrecking this land"???  Shit, Bush backed out of the Kyoto Treaty so we could wreck all the land.

And they didn't care.  They applauded it.  They voted for it.

But suddenly the  horrendous Gee Oh Pee   "environmental" and "energy" policy is on their front doorstep and they're ready to fight!  They're concerned about the land!  Suddenly, they get it!

And what are these lifelong Republicans going to do about it?

They're going to go to the out of control, activist courts for relief!  They're going to sue!  Gee, all I can say is, I hope all these lifelong Republicans file a class action suit and then get forced, because of Republican tort reform, to bring their claims in the Republican dominated, corporate friendly federal court system.

Good luck there, suckers!  Once again, you voted for it.  You've been voting for it.  You got it.  Right in your backyards.  And front yards, ya fucking bullshitters.

Now, shut up and enjoy it.

Warming Up The New Prick

Poor David Brooks!  He's struggling so valiantly to write something both conservative and intelligent, and he's just finding it to be impossible:

Bill Frist was his high school's class president. He was a quarterback on the football team and a member of the honor society, and lived amid the upper crust of Nashville society. He dated the head cheerleader, and while he was in med school they were engaged to be married.

But while interning in Boston, he met another woman, spent a dinner and a night with her, and fell in love. Two days before his wedding, he flew back to Nashville and broke off his engagement. "Everyone listened carefully to what I said, all the lame explanations I had that were and were not the truth," Frist later wrote, "and they nodded and dealt with it and I went on my way."

I've always admired that anecdote. It took guts to break off the grand wedding that was in the works - to risk alienating everyone he had grown up with for the sake of the woman he had suddenly come to love…

Yes, I admire that anecdote, too.  It did take some guts to wait until two days before your wedding, after your bride to be bought her wedding gown, after her bridesmaids bought their gowns, after the bride's family bought wedding cakes and flowers and food and liquor for guests;  after the bride's family arranged for a church, and a place for a reception, and a band, maybe rented a limo;  after all your friends and family made travel arrangements and bought gifts;  after announcements were published in the newspaper, it certainly did take a lot of guts to wait until two days before your wedding to screw everyone involved except your bride to be.

Her, you just humiliated.  But that takes guts, as well.

But, you know, I'm not making fun of Brooks or Frist because a wedding got called off.  Hell, if the generally accepted statistics about modern American marriages are to be believed, more than half of the weddings that take place should have been called off.

Nothing wrong with that.  Spare yourselves some tortured years, some messy divorce.  Spare some children from being born into a family without much love and hardly any decency or even peace and quiet.

Nothing wrong with that.

But what makes Frist especially admirable is that he had the guts to avoid that those kind of painful entanglements two days before his wedding.  Because he met another woman. 

That's true grit, baby.

What's even more admirable about Frist is that just before his wedding, he had the guts to be out there still dating!  Hey, Brooks!  I admire that myself!  I mean, just because you're engaged to be married is no reason a man shouldn't continue to test his commitment.  The only way to know for sure if you should call off your wedding is to continue to date right down to the bachelor party!

And maybe bang a stripper the night of.

Yes, that took guts.  It took guts to "risk alienating everyone he had grown up with for the sake of the woman he had suddenly come to love"--not to mention the guts it took to humiliate the woman he had promised to love!  What a guy!  How compassionate!

For old fashioned family values, that little story ranks right up there with Newt Gringrich handing his wife divorce papers while she's laying in a hospital bed with cancer.

Shit, no wonder traditional family values conservatives despise Bill Clinton!  Clinton, aside from being a first rate president, all that guy managed to do was to keep his little family together for about thirty years--through politics and the simple failings that more people than we'd like to admit suffer from.  What a pussy!

If he'd have had any guts, he would have dumped Hillary with a baby on her lap for a younger woman in a heartbeat, like Newt Gingrich, or Rush Limbaugh, or Ronald Reagan.  Sticking it out, no matter what problems you have in your marriage is for degenerate liberals.

For compassionate, old time, family values conservatives, putting "me" first shows guts, no matter how many friends, family, or loved ones you have to hurt or alienate to do it.

Frist's motto in his high school yearbook was, "But I don't like to rest." He excelled at everything and noted, "Not surprisingly, with the family emphasis on self-worth, I longed to be first in everything, to be king of the hill, the grammar school capo di capo. I imagine I was quite insufferable."

Hey, Fristy, you weren't just imagining it, baby!  You really are quite insufferable.

We won't even remark on Frist identifying excellence with the mafia.  We'll just let his record in the Senate speak for itself.

There were two things Frist was not: political and ideologically conservative. He barely voted before he ran for Senate…

Sometimes in their quests to perform greater acts of service, people lose contact with their animating passion. And the irony is that the earlier Frist, the Tennessee Republican, the brilliant and passionate health care expert, is exactly the person the country could use.

Oh, yeah.  The country sure could use a guy like Bill Frist--a guy with the guts to dump his fiance two days before the wedding.  A guy who had so much love and concern for his country, hell, he barely even voted before he ran for the Senate. 

The country sure could use a guy whose every big decision and action seems to be the answer to the question, "Hey, what's best for Bill Frist?"  A guy who's not afraid to hurt or abandon or alienate anyone to do what's best for Bill Frist.  A guy who's not afraid to be insufferable.

That is exactly the kind of guy this country needs.  Just as soon as we're done with the guy who's not afraid to hurt or kill, or lie to do what's best for George W. Bush.

If Bush Lies To Congress, But No Democrats Chair A Single Committee, Did Bush Really Tell A Lie?

“Quite frankly, evidence that appears to be building up points to whether or not the president has deliberately misled Congress to make the most important decision a president has to make, going to war,” Rep. Charles Rangel of New York, senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said earlier at the event on Capitol Hill.

Misleading Congress is an impeachable offense, a point that Rangel underscored by saying he’s already been through two impeachments, of President Nixon in Watergate and President Clinton for an affair with a White House intern.

Well, of course, misleading Congress is an impeachable offense.  But Bush has been misleading Congress since he came into office.  He's misled Congress nearly every time he's addressed them.  How about Medicare:

The White House released budget figures yesterday indicating that the new Medicare prescription drug benefit will cost more than $1.2 trillion in the coming decade, a much higher price tag than President Bush suggested when he narrowly won passage of the law in late 2003…

Last March, Richard S. Foster, Medicare's chief actuary for nearly a decade, said administration officials threatened to fire him if he disclosed his belief in 2003 that the drug package would cost $500 billion to $600 billion. Lawmakers in both parties accused the administration of concealing important information that could have derailed passage of the bill.

How about African uranium?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A former U.S. diplomat said Sunday he told the Bush administration that Iraq had not tried to buy uranium from Niger in the late 1990s to develop nuclear weapons.

Former Ambassador to Gabon Joseph Wilson told NBC's "Meet the Press" he informed the CIA and the State Department that such information was false months before U.S. and British officials used it during the debate that led to war.

During his State of the Union address in January, two months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, President Bush accused Iraq of trying to buy "significant quantities of uranium" from an unnamed African country. He cited British intelligence, which had published a similar report in September 2002.

"If they were referring to Niger when they were referring to uranium sales from Africa to Iraq, ... that information was erroneous and ... they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British white paper and the president's State of the Union address," Wilson said.

That's right.  The State of the Union address.  To Congress.

How about them aluminum tubes?

The White House also continued to push the theory that Iraq was importing aluminum tubes for enriching uranium to weapons grade, even though, according to The Post, experts told the government for more than a year that the tubes were not suited for that purpose. And there was evidence the tubes were perfectly suited for Iraq's stated purpose — to build rockets.

The IAEA also refuted the White House theory about the tubes.

That's right.  That was also to Congress.  Even though, again, "experts told the government for more than a year that the tubes were not suited for that purpose".

How about how many troops would be needed in "post war" Iraq?

However, Rumsfeld said the post-war troop commitment would be less than the number of troops required to win the war. He also said "the idea that it would take several hundred thousand U.S. forces, I think, is far from the mark."

Rumsfeld's comments came in response to a question about an estimate of post-war troop strength given in a congressional hearing Tuesday by the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shineski. Under questioning by lawmakers, Shineski offered the estimate that an occupying force might involve several hundred thousand U.S. troops.

In testimony Thursday before the House Budget Committee, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Shineski's estimate was "way off the mark," noting that other countries would take part in an occupying force and share the financial burden of helping Iraqis build a new government.

That's right.  That was testimony to Congress.

How about how much it would cost to invade Iraq?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The White House is downplaying published reports of an estimated $50 billion to $60 billion price tag for a war with Iraq, saying it is "impossible" to estimate the cost at this time…

In September, Daniels disputed an estimate by Bush economic adviser Larry Lindsey -- who has since left the White House -- that war with Iraq could cost $200 billion.

Daniels said he believes Lindsey's estimate was "the upper end of a hypothetical," Duffy said.

And Lindsey didn't "leave" the White House.  He got fired.  And what else did the White House tell Congress about those costs?

Back on April 23, 2003, Andrew Natsios -- head of the U.S. Agency for International Development -- laid out in a televised interview the costs to U.S. taxpayers of rebuilding Iraq. "The American part of this will be $1.7 billion," he said. "We have no plans for any further-on funding for this…"

Natsios was far from the only one to offer low-ball figures. Similarly, a report by the White House Office of Management and Budget in late March 2003 said: "Iraq will not require sustained aid."

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in February 2003, dismissed reports that Pentagon budget specialists had put the cost of reconstruction at $60 billion to $95 billion during the first year -- in retrospect, relatively accurate forecasts. In testimony to Congress on March 27, 2003, Wolfowitz said that Iraq "can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

How about those climate reports?

WASHINGTON — The White House on Wednesday defended the actions of one of its key staffers who's publicly accused of editing government reports to downplay the link between "greenhouse" gases and global warming…

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Philip Cooney, chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, changed descriptions of climate research approved by government scientists.

The Times said that Cooney, a lawyer and former lobbyist with the American Petroleum Institute, made notes on drafts of reports issued in 2002 and 2003, removing or adjusting language on climate research.

Some of the changes were as subtle as adding the words "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," the Times reported. In one section, he crossed out a paragraph describing the projected reduction of glaciers and snowpack, the newspaper said.

How about the Bush administration taking 700 million Congress appropriated for Afghanistan and spending it on Iraq?

“Gets to a point where in July, the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. …Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this."

How about them September 11th terrorists?

(CBS) Two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, an analysis prepared for U.S. intelligence warned that Osama bin Laden's terrorists could hijack an airliner and fly it into government buildings like the Pentagon.

"Suicide bomber(s) belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), or the White House," the September 1999 report said.

The Bush administration has asserted that no one in government had envisioned a suicide hijacking before it happened…

Bush administration officials have repeatedly said no one in government had imagined such an attack.

"I don't think anybody could have predicted that ... they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said Thursday.

 And, of course, Condi repeated that lie to the September 11th commission, but that wasn't really Congress, was it?  Because the Republican Congress had no interest--if you can still believe it!--in holding Congressional hearings on the worst intelligence failure in the history of the United States.  The Republican Congress, which held untold hearings on firings in the White House travel office, and on real estate deals in Arkasas in the 1970's had no interest in holding a single hearing on the murder of 2000 Americans in downtown Manhattan!  In broad daylight.  On live television.

I know you all lived throught it.  But, really, when you think about it, can you still believe it???

These very same Republicans held hearings--I'll say it again--on the White House Travel Office firings.  And not one single one on SEPTEMBER 11TH.  Not one single Republican even asked for one.

They held hearings on the Travel Office, on Clinton’s pardons, lobbying roles of ex-Gore aides, Clinton fund raising, taxpayer funded databases, Democratic fundraising in the Senate,  fundraising in the  House,  fund raising from China, telephone calls, visits to Buddhist temples, Democratic ties to the Teamsters, Commerce Department hirings, and on and on.

I really could go on and on.  If you read those articles, those thousands of continuous hours of Republican House and Senate hearings, um, aside from the Travel Office, those are all in just one year  while Clinton was in office.  All that shit is just from 1997.

That's the Republicans in Congress in ONE YEAR. 

And the Gee Oh Pee had been doing that, those non-stop hearings since they took the House in 1994.  Plus there was the two independent prosecutors and the Impeachment.

And, amazingly, everyone wants to pretend that never happened--The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, the major networks.  They want to continue to entertain the idea that there's suddenly this "irrational" Bush hatred out there, that the Democrats are the party of obstructionalism, the party of the Stop Sign, that unheard of partisanship is being seen in today's Washington.

And those same Republicans, which now control both houses of Congress, have not held a single hearing on either September 11th or on the Iraqi War.  None.  Zippo.

When Democrats have asked for a single Congressional hearing on 9/11.  And didn't get it.  When Democrats asked for a single Congressional hearing on the Iraq War.  And not only didn't they get it, they didn't even get a fucking room to hold an unofficial hearing in.

I mean, can you believe it?  Can you believe any of this is actually happening?

No, of course you can't.  It's too stupid to be true.  But it is.

Gore spends 20 minutes at a Buddhist Temple and Louis Freeh dispatches 200 federal agents to investigate and the House Republicans hold two years worth of hearings.  Bush launches a war, costing 200 billion dollars, killing 1700 Americans, and hideously wounding another 10,000, and the People's House won't even hold a single hearing on it?

Boring!  Not interested!

Forget it, Democrats.  Forget that impeachment thing.  Stop talking about it.  It's a waste of time.

If Bush could be impeached, he would have been a long, long time ago.

This has been the most blatantly, shameless, obviously dishonest government in my lifetime.  And not only doesn't Congress give a good goddam, that ol' "liberal" media couldn't possible care less.

If you want anything remotely resembling justice, forget that impeachment thing.  Get just as emotional, just as passionate about the 2006 elections as you were about the presidential election.  Without at least one house of Congress, all this, no matter how amazingly outrageous, is just whistling in the wind.