Sounds About Right

Watching some of the speech this morning it became clear that our country is run by a shockingly stupid, somewhat delusional, and very messianic person who has downloaded large doses of extreme wingnuttery deep into his brain stem.

Two more years...

Making Sure Thousands and Thousands More Die for His Mistake

Bush in Vietnam (!!!) referring to Iraq: "We'll succeed unless we quit".

He's just a bad, bad man.

Josh Marshall has more:

So, now back to Vietnam -- both the metaphor and the country.

Isn't this trip a really odd venue for the president to be arguing that staying the course basically forever is the only acceptable solution? Though it took a tragically long time, the US, for all the moonwalking, eventually decided to pull up stakes in Vietnam. And what was the result? One might make arguments that the Soviets and Soviet proxies were temporarily emboldened in Africa or Latin America, though I think that's debatable. But what of the real effects? The Soviet Union was dismantling itself within little more than a decade of our pull-out. And now we have a Vietnam that is politically repressive at home but proto-capitalist in its economy and, by any measure, incredibly eager for good relations with the United States.

If geo-political standing and international repercussions are really the issue we're discussing, it seems very hard to argue that our decision to pull out of Vietnam had any lasting or meaningful ill-effects. And there's at least a decent argument to the contrary.

And yet here we have President Bush, stepping on to Vietnamese soil to further our rapprochement with Vietnam, and arguing, in so many words, that the lesson of Vietnam is that we should still be there blowing the place up thirty years later.

We're really deep into the primitive brainstem phase of our long national nightmare of presidential denial and mendacity on Iraq. Poetically, politically and intellectually it's appropriate that Henry Kissinger is now along for the ride.

UPDATE: Olbermann has some worthwhile words as well.

Faith-Based Science

Ugh:

During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush said that "the jury is still out" on the merits of Darwinism.[21] That is true only if the jury is not made up of reputable scientists. Bush meant to place religious figures on the jury, to decide a scientific question. As president, he urged that schools teach "intelligent design" along with Darwinism—that is, teach religion alongside science in science classes. Gary Bauer, like other evangelicals, was delighted when the President said that. Bush's endorsement proves, Bauer observed, that intelligent design "is not some backwater view." An executive at the Discovery Institute, which supports intelligent design, chimed in: "President Bush is to be commended for defending free speech on evolution."[22] By that logic, teaching flat-earthism, or the Ptolemaic system alongside the Copernican system, is a defense of "free speech."
(snip)

Since President Bush advocates the teaching of intelligent design, it is not surprising that in his administration, the National Park Service would authorize the sale of a book at the Grand Canyon claiming that the canyon was formed by Noah's Flood. A group of scientists protested this endorsement by the government of bogus science. In response to that, the Alliance Defense Fund, set up by James Dobson and other fundamentalists, threatened a lawsuit if the book was withdrawn from sale at the federal site. As other religious right figures chimed in, it was discovered that a draft guide for park employees stated that the canyon was not formed in the time period of the Flood; the guide was not released. A survey of Park Service employees in 2003 found that almost nine out of ten felt the scientific message of the Service was being skewed for political reasons.[24] That is the very definition of faith-based science.

So is the Bush administration's denial of global warming. The religious right would seem to have no stake in this position, but for whatever reason —the premillennial lack of concern for the earth's fate as Jesus' coming nears, the "dominion" over the earth given Adam—evangelicals have been urgent in denying what most objective scientists have been observing. The White House intervened to have cautions against global warming removed from a 2003 draft report on the environment.[25] Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma has called reports of global warming "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."[26] His hostility to any environmental concerns is such that he has called the Environmental Protection Agency a "Gestapo," and likened its female director to "Tokyo Rose."[27] Inhofe is an evangelical who says that Israel was given the West Bank by God—he claimed that the attack on the World Trade Center was caused by America's weak support of Israel...

31% Approval

Almost makes me feel sorry for the guy.

Almost.

Impeach!

87 percent say 'plenty to justify' Bush impeachment!

The Rumsfeld Lie

Bush Admits He Lied About Rumsfeld For Political Purposes

Last week, President Bush unequivocally told a group of reporters that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney would “remain with him until the end of his presidency, extending a job guarantee to two of the most-vilified members of his administration.” Bush said, “Both those men are doing fantastic jobs and I strongly support them.”

Today, he announced Rumsfeld is resigning and being replaced by former CIA Director Robert Gates. At the press conference, Bush said that “the only way to answer that question, and get it on to another question, was to give you [the reporters] that answer.” Bush admitted that he had talked to Rumsfeld about resigning and was actively searching for his replacement at the time.

November 7th, 2006

Incurious George got spanked.


Big time.

Editing History

Now why is this not surprising?

What a Ride

TWPE's approval ratings over time.