Marble Composition

President Shitmouth

Oh yes, we're turning very shrill over here at the MB. One of the best bloggers in the business is Steve Benen. He hangs his shingle under the name The Carpet Bagger Report. Pretty sweet. I'm hoping Steve won't mind, because I'm snagging this entire post:

Bush doesn't realize he's already 'changed the tone'

Once in a great while, Bush says something so unbelievable, I have to wonder if he's an incredibly good liar or living in some kind of bizarro world in which reality has no meaning. Consider, for example, this gem from the president's interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity.

"I don't like the tone in Washington, D.C. I feel like that the politics has gotten ugly, and that tends to discourage people around the country. And that's just too bad.

"I would hope in my last two years I can — and, by the way, I've never really resorted to name-calling. And I'm not trying to say, well, you know, I'm innocent and everybody else is guilty. That's not what I'm trying to say. But I understand that it's one thing to disagree with a person, but it's another thing to have to resort to kind of shameless name-calling. And I really don't think it's fitting for the president to drag the presidency into that kind of a mudslinging."

You've got to be kidding me.

"Gotten ugly"? A few weeks ago, the president kicked the campaign season into high gear with some unusually bitter rhetoric. "We know the enemy wants to attack us again," Bush said, whereas Democrats "offer nothing but criticism and obstruction and endless second-guessing." Shortly thereafter, the president upped the ante, telling a partisan crowd, "If you listen closely to some of the leaders of the Democratic Party, it sounds like — it sounds like — they think the best way to protect the American people is, wait until we're attacked again." This week, Bush pushed the envelope to the breaking point, telling a crowd that Dems want terrorists to win.

"Drag the presidency into that kind of a mudslinging"? Bush is the first president to so blatantly use a war to smear his political opponents with unfair and untrue attacks.

In what universe can this man consider himself above the fray?

This is, after all, the president said in 2002 that Senate Democrats are "not interested in the security of the American people" because they disagreed with him on a labor issue, and then refused to apologize.

When Dick Durbin questioned the administration's gulags, Team Bush has accused Democrats of being traitors.

When Jack Murtha unveiled a redeployment plan for Iraq, Team Bush said Murtha has endorsed "the policy positions of Michael Moore" and suggested Murtha wants to "surrender to the terrorists."

When Patrick Leahy questioned no-bid contracts for Halliburton, Bush's VP told him to go f*** himself.

And, of course, lengthy books are available on Team Bush's vicious smears of John McCain and Al Gore in 2000, and of John Kerry in 2004.

The "tone" in DC is noxious because Bush and his team a) made it that way; and b) prefer it that way. For the president to lament the environment that he created is simply breathtaking.

As you can plainly see, I'm a little bit more harsh with blog post titles than Steve is, but he's a respected guy, and I'm a shitmouth myself.

When Steve says, "You've got to be kidding me", he's not joking. I said the same thing to myself when I read Bush's phony horseshit. Then I remembered that this was the playbook Newt Gingrich created to energize the voting public to buy into the Contract With America in 1994, and ultimately vote Republican. Have a look at the words Republicans were instructed to use to describe Democrats:

• abuse of power
• anti- (issue): flag, family, child, jobs
• betray
• bizarre
• bosses
• bureaucracy
• cheat
• coercion
• "compassion" is not enough
• collapse(ing)
• consequences
• corrupt
• corruption
• criminal rights
• crisis
• cynicism
• decay
• deeper
• destroy
• destructive
• devour
• disgrace
• endanger
• excuses
• failure (fail)
• greed
• hypocrisy
• ideological
• impose
• incompetent
• insecure
• insensitive

• intolerant
• liberal
• lie
• limit(s)
• machine
• mandate(s)
• obsolete
• pathetic
• patronage
• permissive attitude
• pessimistic
• punish (poor ...)
• radical
• red tape
• self-serving
• selfish
• sensationalists
• shallow
• shame
• sick
• spend(ing)
• stagnation
• status quo
• steal
• taxes
• they/them
• threaten
• traitors
• unionized
• urgent (cy)
• waste
• welfare

Somewhere along the line, George got the memo. After all, "traitors" is on the list, and I'll probably be dead before the Republican party stops using that term to describe anyone that opposes them. In this case George pictures himself as "above the fray". Someday he'll figure out that he is the fray.

posted by FuzzFinger @ 11/02/2006 10:17:00 PM