"Liberal Fascism is such a transparently sloppy, shifty, intellectually rinky-dink endeavor that a show of anger would be a larger expenditure of emotion than a book this second-rate deserves."
Mr. McKay said Ms. Marsden's claim that she had a two-year relationship with the officer was incorrect. "They met each other. From there, if she perceives some sort of relationship that lasted for two years, she would be in a different world."
"By the way, ***hole, the world is still waiting for a single refutation of the Swift Boat Veterans' charges against JohnF'n Kerry."
At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”
By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”
...
“Freedom to express dissent against our leaders has traditionally been a core American value,” she wrote by e-mail. “Unfortunately, the Bush brand of patriotism, where criticizing Bush means you are a traitor, seems to have penetrated a significant minority of U.S. bridge players.”
Twenty-four minutes after he began speaking in a small restaurant the other day, Fred Thompson brought his remarks to a close with a nod of his head and an expression of thanks to Iowans for allowing him to “give my thoughts about some things.”
Then he stood face to a face with a silent audience.
“Can I have a round of applause?” Mr. Thompson said, drawing a rustle of clapping and some laughter.
“Well, I had to drag that out of you,” he said.
So this is the point. Bush's argument is explicitly ideological. He wants children to get sick and die in order to prevent what he believes will be a slide toward what he calls "socialized medicine." Conservatives may not wish to claim him anymore, but this speaks to a fundamental difference between liberals and conservatives, and it's not just about letting kids get sick and die.
snip
As the apostate conservative, Kevin Phillips observes, "The Bush Administration is not against big government." What it opposes is merely that "portion of it that regulates business and requires tax increases, against a welfare system. When it's the latter, they're against big government, but when it's big government that takes care of the oil industry or bails out financial institutions or pumps money into the Pentagon, then they tend to be in favor of that."
"A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JOE REPUBLICAN"
Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water to prepare his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards. With his first swallow of water, he takes his daily medication. His medications are safe to take because some stupid commie liberal fought to ensure their safety and that they work as advertised.
All but $10 of his medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some liberal union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too.
He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.
In the morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo. His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.
Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is clean because some environmentalist wacko liberal fought for the laws to stop industries from polluting our air.
He walks on the government-provided sidewalk to subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants liberal fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.
Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some lazy liberal union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union.
If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a worker compensation or unemployment check because some stupid liberal didn't think he should lose his home because of his temporary misfortune.
It is noontime and Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression.
Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist liberal decided that Joe and the government would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. Joe also forgets that his in addition to his federally subsidized student loans, he attended a state funded university.
Joe is home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards to go along with the tax-payer funded roads.
He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans.
The house didn't have electricity until some big-government liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.
He is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating liberal made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.
Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that the beloved Republicans have fought against every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day. Joe agrees: "We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man who believes everyone should take care of themselves, just like I have."
"If President Bush copied Julius Caesar by ordering his army to empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans, he would achieve immediate results: popularity with his military; enrichment of America by converting an Arabian Iraq into an American Iraq (therefore turning it from a liability to an asset); and boost American prestiege(sic) while terrifying American enemies."
"President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-Life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world?"
“For all the years he was president,” Dick Armey told me, “Bill Clinton and I had a little thing we’d do where every time I went to the White House, I would take the little name tag they give you and pass it to the president, who, without saying a word, would sign and date it. Bill Clinton and I didn’t like each other. He said I was his least-favorite member of Congress. But he knew that when I left his office, the first schoolkid I came across would be given that card, and some kid who had come to Washington with his mama would go home with the president’s autograph. I think Clinton thought it was a nice thing to do for some kid, and he was happy to do it.”
Armey said that when he went to his first meeting in the White House with President Bush, he explained the tradition with Clinton and asked the president if he would care to continue it. “Bush refused to sign the card. Rove, who was sitting across the table, said, ‘It would probably wind up on eBay,’” Armey continued. “Do I give a damn? No. But can you imagine refusing a simple request like that with an insult? It’s stupid. From the point of view of your own self-interest, it’s stupid. I was from Texas, and I was the majority leader. If my expectations of civility and collegiality were disappointed, what do you think it was like for the rest of the congressmen they dealt with? The Bush White House was tone-deaf to the normal courtesies of the office.”
Karl Rove deserves to be remembered as the man who thought Americans should have enough education to understand his fables but not enough to doubt them. Here's Rove, according to Nicholas Lemann in 2001 (The New Yorker doesn't seem to have it online):"Our education plan allows us to make further gains in the suburbs. It will also allow us to make gains with Hispanics and African-Americans. ... As people do better, they start voting like Republicans -- unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."
There's no more suitable summary for his career as adviser to President Bush; he is a man who thinks that if you knew a little more about what was going on, you'd vote against his candidate. So he doesn't want you to know.
Bykofsky: You know, John, my wife and I dearly love our rottweiler, Leonidas.
Gibson: Can we put up a photo? Ahh she's a fine beast, Stu.
Bykofsky: "He", John. Anyway, we love him but lately the wife and I are at odds over how to care for him.
Gibson: How so, Stu?
Bykofsky: Well, Mrs. B wants to switch him over to a kibble of sorts while I believe a raw meat diet is best for him. For a while we were united on the issue of his diet but things have changed and we just can't seem to resolve this. So now Leonidas has started to get all confused. Sleeps on the couch. Doesn't always come when we call him. We're at an impasse and I believe, because of it, Leonidas is doomed.
Gibson: Sounds hopeless. What's the solution?
Bykofsky: The only way I see things changing for the better is to, well, to cut his hind legs off. Now, I'm not advocating cutting his hind legs off, you understand...
Gibson: Of course.
Bykofsky: ...but as I see it, cutting his hind legs off is the only way Leonidas is going to survive.
Gibson: Have you thought of just cutting his nose off - you know - to spite his face?
Bykofsky: Sure, sure. That's another consideration.
Gibson: I think it’s going to take a lot of severed doggy parts to wake ol' Leonidas up.
Bykofsky: Sad but true, John.
"Reporting by anecdote is how we got a president who doesn't windsurf, doesn't order the "wrong" kind of cheesesteak, doesn't wear earth tones, doesn't sigh, and doesn't exaggerate* -- but who does lie to the nation on the way to war, spy on Americans, torture people, threaten to veto health care for children, allow arsenic in our drinking water, politicize the Justice Department, take an à la carte approach to the Constitution ("I'll have the Second Amendment and a little bit of the 10th, but hold the First, Fourth through Sixth, and the Eighth, please") and generally behave like a despot.
So, you know, there's a downside."
"As one might expect, much of Bush's work for his father's presidential campaigns was done behind the scenes. Yet it's clear he was steeped in political minutiae and imposed few limits on what he was willing to do to get the job done. In 1986, veteran reporter Al Hunt predicted that Jack Kemp would receive the 1988 Republican presidential nomination instead of George H.W. Bush. When George W. saw Hunt dining with his wife and 4-year-old son at a Mexican restaurant in Dallas, he went up to their table and said, "You fucking son of bitch. I won't forget what you said and you're going to pay a fucking price for it." Bush didn't apologize until 13 years later, when the incident resurfaced in the context of his own presidential campaign."
Two things must be said about knowledge-deniers. Their rationale is always political. And more often than not, they hold in their hand a sacred text for certification.
The president may speak of the nation in idealistic terms but his actions demonstrate that he has no real concept of national community. His America, like that of his sponsors, is a population to be manipulated for the power to be had for the money to be made. He is the subject of jokes and he jokes himself about his clumsiness with words, but his mispronunciations and malapropisms suggest a mind of half-learned language that is eerily compatible with his indifference to truth, his disdain for knowledge as a foundation of a democratic society.
“On a day when he trumpeted democracy, President Bush noted the vital nature of a free press. Then he got a laugh when the press got stiffed,” the AP reports in a wire story.
Iraq bars photographers from scenes of bomb attacks.
“Iraq’s interior ministry has decided to bar news photographers and camera operators from the scenes of bomb attacks, operations director Brigadier General Abdel Karim Khalaf said on Sunday.” BarbinMD notes, “This follows the recent decision by the Iraqi government to no longer release civilian casualty figures. Toss in the U.S. policy of not including the victims of bomb attacks in casualty counts, and soon we will all be able to pretend that there is progress in Iraq.”
