Worst President Ever?

In all my adult life, every time I've thought we can't possibly have a worse President, the voters have proved me wrong.

I first thought it about Nixon, then Reagan, then Dubya (with Cheney's help), and now Trump. 

I sure hope I'm finally right, that it can't get any worse!

More bumperstickers ('06)

Be nice to America or we'll bring democracy to your country.

Bush: Like a rock, only dumber.

Annoy a conservative: Think.

Ignorance and arrogance is a bad foreign policy.

Which God do you kill for?

Of course it hurts, you're getting screwed by an elephant.

Love Thy Enemy strongly implies not killing them.

Hey Bush supporter, embarrassed yet?

When fascism comes to this country, it will draped in a flag and carrying a cross.
- Sinclair Lewis

If you want a nation ruled by religion, move to Iran.

America: one nation under surveillance

You can't be pro-life and pro-war.

Nothing is less patriotic than lying to your country.
Impeach Bush.

Jesus was a bleeding heart, long haired, peace loving, anti-establishment hippie freak with strange ideas - everything conservatives hate.

At least in Vietnam Bush had an exit strategy.

I'd rather have a president screwing his mistress than screwing his country.

They that can give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Ben Franklin

Rich man's war, poor man's blood.

We're making enemies faster than we can kill them.

If you support Bush's war, why are you still here? Shut up and ship out!

I think, therefore I am liberal.

The Republican Party, our bridge to the 11th century.

Torture is not a family value.

You voted for Bush?? Are you evil or just stupid?

Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner ('06)

Satirist Stephen Colbert at the White House Correspondents' Dinner in April 2006.
The full video (24:10) is here
The full transcript is here

Excerpts:

I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it the No Fact Zone. Fox News, I hold a copyright on that term.

I believe the government that governs best is the government that governs least. And by these standards, we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.

Though I am a committed Christian, I believe that everyone has the right to their own religion, be you Hindu, Jewish or Muslim. I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

Fox News gives you both sides of every story: the president's side, and the vice president's side.

But the rest of you, what are you thinking, reporting on NSA wiretapping or secret prisons in eastern Europe? Those things are secret for a very important reason: they're super-depressing. And if that's your goal, well, misery accomplished. Over the last five years you people were so good -- over tax cuts, WMD intelligence, the effect of global warming. We Americans didn't want to know, and you had the courtesy not to try to find out. Those were good times, as far as we knew.

But, listen, let's review the rules. Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. Get to know your family again. Make love to your wife. Write that novel you got kicking around in your head. You know, the one about the intrepid Washington reporter with the courage to stand up to the administration. You know - fiction!

I've got a theory about how to handle these retired generals causing all this trouble: don't let them retire! Come on, we've got a stop-loss program; let's use it on these guys.

Jesse Jackson .... Very interesting and challenging interview. You can ask him anything, but he's going to say what he wants, at the pace that he wants. It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

New press secretary, Tony Snow. Got some big shoes to fill, Tony. Big shoes to fill. Scott McClellan could say nothing like nobody else.

"Will somebody..." ('06)

I received this photo in e-mail in April 2006.

Bill Maher: "George of the Bungle" ('05)

Bill Maher, HBO's Real Time With Bill Maher, Sept. 9, 2005:

The video (3:52) is here.

Partial transcript:

Mr. President, this job can't be fun for you any more. There's no more money to spend -- you used up all of that. You can't start another war because you used up the Army. And now, darn the luck, the rest of your term has become the Bush family nightmare: helping poor people. Listen to your Mom. The cupboard's bare, the credit cards maxed out. No one's speaking to you. Mission accomplished.

Now it's time to do what you've always done best: lose interest and walk away. Like you did with your military service and the oil company and the baseball team. It's time. Time to move on and try the next fantasy job. How about cowboy, or space man?

Now I know what you're saying: there's so many other things that you as President could involve yourself in. Please don't. I know, I know. There's a lot left to do. There's a war with Venezuela. Eliminating the sales tax on yachts. Turning the space program over to the church. And Social Security to Fannie Mae. Giving embryos the vote.

But, Sir, none of that is going to happen now. Why? Because you govern like Billy Joel drives. You've performed so poorly I'm surprised that you haven't given yourself a medal. You're a catastrophe that walks like a man. Herbert Hoover was a shitty president, but even he never conceded an entire metropolis to rising water and snakes.

On your watch, we've lost almost all of our allies, the surplus, four airliners, two trade centers, a piece of the Pentagon and the City of New Orleans. Maybe you're just not lucky.

I'm not saying you don't love this country. I'm just wondering how much worse it could be if you were on the other side.

So, yes, God does speak to you. What he is saying is "Take a hint."

How a Bill Becomes a Law ('06)

How a Bill Becomes a Law - Revised Version
(click to enlarge)

Bumperstickers ('06)

Some favorite bumperstickers and slogans in early 2006:

(Each is a link to cafepress)

• Focus on your own damn family
  

• Bush lied and you know it
  

• Support our troops - Impeach Bush
  

• Impeachment - It's not just for blowjobs anymore
  

• 99% of the Republicans give the rest a bad name
  

• Blind faith in bad leadership is not patriotism
  

• Hooray for term limits
  

Military records of politicians ('05)

Comparing military records of prominent politicians and pundits.

Some of the Republicans are shown here. The full list, including Democrats (many of whom had distinguished service records), is at the link above.

• George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.
  
• Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.
  
• Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.
  
• Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
  
• Tom Delay: did not serve.
  
• Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
  
• Rick Santorum: did not serve.
  
• Trent Lott: did not serve.
  
• Phil Gramm: did not serve.
  
• John McCain: Vietnam POW, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
  
• Sean Hannity: did not serve.
  
• Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')
  
• Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
  

Ivins: The Looting of America ('05)

Link: The Looting of America
by Molly Ivins

December, 2005

[Excerpted; full text at the above link. (The pictured book is just for illustration; it does not include this Ivins column.)]

I do not think it premature to conclude that the entire financial industry of this country is riddled with fraud....

Jack A. Blum, a Washington lawyer and expert in money-laundering and other forms of tax evasion, wrote the following for an academic conference held earlier this year at the University of Texas: "Corporate managers have spent the last century developing tools for avoiding regulation and taxation. They brag that acts of tax avoidance are part of corporate productivity. For them, each dollar of tax not paid because of their machinations is the added value they bring to a company. Tax avoidance is a profit center. Avoidance of regulation and supervision is an equally high priority. Corporate contributions and the personal contributions of senior corporate managers have funded anti-regulatory think tanks and anti-regulatory scholarship. Political contributions have turned theory into reality."...

The social control of corporate behavior also stops with this administration. George W. Bush's first choice for chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, Harvey Pitt, famously planned "a kinder, gentle SEC."...

At the Treasury Department, John Snow, master of paying no corporate taxes and the golden parachute, is now in charge. Bush's Federal Power Commission, with one member banished by Ken Lay of Enron and another selected by him, couldn't be bothered to notice the enormous fraudulent "energy crisis" in California until $30 billion had been sucked out of that state.

Talk about the lunatics running the asylum. Former lobbyists for special interests now dominate the top of the bureaucracies -- not to regulate, but to facilitate corporate rip-offs. Michael Powell at the Federal Communications Commission thinks more media mergers will be good for the nation. At the Interior Department, it is rip and run, all-out exploitation of natural resources, leaving nothing but a trash heap behind -- a trash heap, incidentally, that the taxpayers will have to pay to clean up, since the Superfund for toxic waste cleanups has been allowed to lapse entirely.

Richard Todd, writing about the mutual-fund scandal in the Times Sunday Magazine, asked: "Were these laws and rules taken seriously by anyone -- or was it common knowledge in the industry that they were routinely flouted? Who was in on the deal? Was all this done more or less in the open with a genial nod and wink among hundreds of guys who understood the game? Or was the money inhaled like cocaine in a surreptitious instant in the back room? Did non-players know? Did 'my' broker know?"...

And the corrupt corporate culture has in turn bought the political system. Medicare "reform" is a huge boondoggle for the drug companies. The energy bill is nothing but corporate subsidies. We have seen people like Dennis Kozlowski and Ken Lay loot their corporations. We are now watching the looting of an entire country.

Michael Moore: To All My Fellow Americans Who Voted for George W. Bush ('05)

Link: A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore

September 11, 2005

[excerpted; full text at the above link]

Dear Friends,

On this, the fourth anniversary of 9/11, I'm just curious, how does it feel?

How does it feel to know that, the man you re-elected to lead us AFTER we were attacked, went ahead and put a guy in charge of FEMA whose main qualification was that he ran horse shows? ...

[H]ow do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety?...

Are we safer now than before 9/11?...

When men who never served in the military, and have never seen young men die in battle, send our young people off to war, do you think they know how to conduct a war? Do they know what it means to have your legs blown off for a threat that was never there?

Do you really believe that turning over important government services to private corporations has resulted in better services for the people?

Why do you hate our federal government so much? You have voted for politicians for the past 25 years whose main goal has been to de-fund the federal government. Do you think that cutting federal programs like FEMA and the Army Corps of Engineers has been good or bad for America? GOOD OR BAD?!

With the nation's debt at an all-time high, do you think tax cuts for the rich are still a good idea?...

Do you believe in Jesus? Really? Didn't he say that we would be judged by how we treat the least among us?...

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

Our vulnerability is not just about dealing with terrorists or natural disasters. We are vulnerable and unsafe because we allow one in eight Americans to live in horrible poverty. We accept an education system where one in six children never graduate and most of those who do can't string a coherent sentence together. The middle class can't pay the mortgage or the hospital bills and 45 million have no health coverage whatsoever.

Are we safe? Do you really feel safe? You can only move so far out and build so many gated communities before the fruit of what you've sown will be crashing through your walls and demanding retribution. Do you really want to wait until that happens? Or is it your hope that if they are left alone long enough to soil themselves and shoot themselves and drown in the filth that fills the street that maybe the problem will somehow go away?

I know you know better. You gave the country and the world a man who wasn't up for the job and all he does is hire people who aren't up for the job. You did this to us, to the world, to the people of New Orleans. Please fix it. Bush is yours....

Yours,

Michael Moore

Slogans ('05)

Signs reported at a September 2005 anti-war march in D.C. (just weeks after Hurricane Katrina):


YeeHa is not a foreign policy

War is Terrorism with a Bigger Budget

Make levees not war

Ex-Republican. Ask me why.

Blind Faith in Bad Leadership is not Patriotism.

Bush is a disaster!
(with the President's face in the eye of a hurricane);

Osama bin Forgotten

Cindy speaks for me

Liar, born liar, born-again liar

Dude -- There's a War Criminal in My White House!!!

Dubya's Second Inaugural ('05)

Dubya's Second Inaugural: The photos you didn't see in the mainstream media coverage.

Dubya's supporters ('04)

Link: "The Homecoming"
by Hal Crowther
Oct. '04

[excerpted; full text at the above link]

... If ever there was a deal-breaker, a faith-breaker between a president and the people who elected him ..., it's this bloody-minded travesty of a war that Bush concocted out of far-right obsessions and cooked intelligence, lied flagrantly to legitimize and then pursued to such a tragic, pitiful cul-de-sac. Such poor judgment yoked to such abysmal incompetence is unprecedented in all presidential history known to me....

I disagree with Bush on virtually every issue; most of his supporters support him for reasons I find incomprehensible or abhorrent. In four short years his administration has poisoned or criminally neglected our economy, our environment, our international reputation and our tradition of human rights and civil liberties. Even science has come under fierce attack by a right-wing coalition of corporate thugs and fundamentalist illiterates....

The great mystery is, who are The Others--the 45 percent or more who manage to believe in this man and his war?...

When you add up neocon imperialists, assault-gun psychos, shallow-closet segregationists, fat-wallet whores who coddle fascists for the sake of deeper tax cuts, fundamentalists for whom pro-choice is pro-Satan, Darwin is Mephistopheles and the Book of Revelation is the literal word of God -- this loose federation of unsavory cults and cliques that make up the modern Republican Party -- you know they don't add up to anything close to an electoral majority....

Where, then, are the rest of the true believers, the Bush bedrock...?

"People getting their fundamental interests wrong is what American political life is all about," writes [Thomas] Frank [in What's the Matter With Kansas]... He describes "a panorama of madness and delusion ... of sturdy blue-collar patriots reciting the Pledge while they strangle their own life chances; of small farmers proudly voting themselves off the land; of working-class guys delivering up a landslide for a candidate whose policies will end their way of life and transform their region into a 'rustbelt.'" ...

It's here in the empty country that the great Republican gullibility holds sway. People surrender their soldier-children, their votes, their meager taxes without a murmur, then call in to right-wing radio hosts to rage about abortionists and same-sex marriage. Where hope is hard to find, people turn to more accessible emotions, like anger and fear.

It takes enemies to give them purpose in the world, and if Osama bin Laden is out of range they're happy to substitute you and me--the too-tolerant, too-skeptical "secular humanists" for whom, ironically, the post-Enlightenment American democracy was expressly designed.

The Republicans are wondrous manipulators of these lost souls, these disenfranchised Middle Americans....

The Day the Enlightenment Went Out ('04)

Link: The Day the Enlightenment Went Out

by Garry Wills
New York Times
Nov. 4, 2004

[excerpted; full text at the above link]

... [Dubya's re-election] might be called Bryan's revenge for the Scopes trial of 1925, in which William Jennings Bryan's fundamentalist assault on the concept of evolution was discredited. Disillusionment with that decision led many evangelicals to withdraw from direct engagement in politics. But they came roaring back into the arena out of anger at other court decisions - on prayer in school, abortion, protection of the flag and, now, gay marriage....

Can a people that believes more fervently in the Virgin Birth than in evolution still be called an Enlightened nation?...

We now resemble [the secular states of modern Europe] less than we do our putative enemies.

Where else do we find fundamentalist zeal, a rage at secularity, religious intolerance, fear of and hatred for modernity? Not in France or Britain or Germany or Italy or Spain. We find it in the Muslim world, in Al Qaeda, in Saddam Hussein's Sunni loyalists. Americans wonder that the rest of the world thinks us so dangerous, so single-minded, so impervious to international appeals. They fear jihad, no matter whose zeal is being expressed.

It is often observed that enemies come to resemble each other. We torture the torturers, we call our God better than theirs - as one American general put it, in words that the president has not repudiated.

President Bush promised in 2000 that he would lead a humble country, be a uniter not a divider, that he would make conservatism compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises this time. He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the reddest aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation....

The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment.

Why Americans Hate Democrats ('04)

Link: "Why Americans Hate Democrats"
by Jane Smiley
Slate, Nov. 4, 2004

[excerpted; full article at above link]

... It's time to be honest about our antagonists....

The election results reflect the decision of the right wing to cultivate and exploit ignorance in the citizenry....

Ignorance and bloodlust have a long tradition in the United States, especially in the red states....

The error that progressives have consistently committed over the years is to underestimate the vitality of ignorance in America.... The blue state citizens make the Rousseauvian mistake of thinking humans are essentially good, and so they never realize when they are about to be slugged from behind.

Here is how ignorance works: First, they put the fear of God into you -- if you don't believe in the literal word of the Bible, you will burn in hell. Of course, the literal word of the Bible is tremendously contradictory, and so you must abdicate all critical thinking, and accept a simple but logical system of belief that is dangerous to question. A corollary to this point is that they make sure you understand that Satan resides in the toils and snares of complex thought and so it is best not try it.

Next, they tell you that you are the best of a bad lot (humans, that is) and that as bad as you are, if you stick with them, you are among the chosen....

The history of the last four years shows that red state types, above all, do not want to be told what to do -- they prefer to be ignorant. As a result, they are virtually unteachable....

Third, and most important, when life grows difficult or fearsome, they (politicians, preachers, pundits) encourage you to cling to your ignorance with even more fervor.... (* See below)

A generation ago, the big capitalists, who have no morals, as we know, decided to make use of the religious right in their class war against the middle class and against the regulations that were protecting those whom they considered to be their rightful prey -- workers and consumers.

The architects of this strategy knew perfectly well that they were exploiting, among other unsavory qualities, a long American habit of virulent racism, but they did it anyway, and we see the outcome now....

remember that threats to democracy from the right always collapse. Whatever their short-term appeal, they are borne of hubris and hatred, and will destroy their purveyors in the end.

- - - - - - - -

(*) Now, in 2010, that reminds me of this:

Barack Obama caught on cellphone video during a campaign fund-raiser in April '08:

"... Our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives....

"It’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations...."

Full video (Click "more info" on the right for the transcript.)

Dubya: changing a lightbulb ('05)

Floating around online in 2005:

Q: How many Bush Administration officials does
it take to change a light bulb?

A: None. There is nothing wrong with the light
bulb; its condition is improving every day.
Any reports of its lack of incandescence are
illusional spin from the liberal media.
Illuminating rooms is hard work. That light
bulb has served honorably, and anything you
say undermines the lighting effort. Why do
you hate freedom?

Post-election slogans ('04)

Spotted at Cafepress in Dec. 2004:

Is it 2008 yet?

Proud to be an American who did NOT vote for Bush

Virtual Canadian: The U.S. is just where I happen to live.

I voted, and all I got was this lousy President.

Frodo has failed. Bush has the ring.

Don't blame me. I voted against Bush TWICE!

Proud Member of the Reality-Based Community

You can't be pro-war and pro-life.

Blind faith in bad leadership is not patriotism.

My next license plate will be made by Bush and Cheney.

Religious fundamentalism: A threat abroad, a threat at home.

It is not morally wrong, an affront to God, or a threat to Homeland Security to question George W. Bush's destructive policies.

No child left without a deficit

I'm too informed to be a Republican.

He's STILL not my President.

Baja Canada (on a California flag)

Proud to be a South Canadian

Canadica

If you destroy the foundation of this country to defend it, then what are you defending?

I see dumb people. (with a red-state map)

Secession not concession

I think for myself. Therefore I am a liberal.

If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention.

Jesus was a liberal.

Pro-Constitution. Anti-Bush.

W stands for Wrong.

It's a new mourning in America.

We've been amBUSHED.

Garboden: "Screw You, America" (for re-electing Dubya) ('04)

Link: "Screw You, America" by Clif Garboden

[excerpted; full text at the link above]

Don't forgive my anger. All this needs to be said. And I know that as soon as that stiff-faced to-the-manure-born right-wing lackey in the White House tries to appoint a 21st-century counterpart to Roy Bean to the Supreme Court in a few weeks, more people are going to wish they'd said it sooner....

What the fuck is wrong with you?! You voted against your self-interest at every turn....

Okay, you want God? Let's talk about God. Your religion is bogus. Fundamentalism, the facile belief in the unexplained and un-researched, is something you born-agains (couldn't get it right the first time, huh?) share with Al Qaeda, whose ideologues doggedly adhere to religious misinterpretations every bit as silly and dangerous as yours. Just like you, Muslim fundamentalists long to impose an unrealistic and intolerant pseudo-Calvinist morality on the world....

Well, sorry to burst your holy bubble, Jesus freaks, but God did not create the world in seven days; that's just ignorant. Like a lot of stuff in the Bible, it didn't happen....

Does it really bother you cornpone chuckleheads that "we" think you're under-educated, culturally limited and ignorant? Well, how about proving us wrong? For starters, get this straight: There were no weapons of mass destruction; the Iraqis did not attack the World Trade Center; lots of children (including many of yours) are left behind every day; the greenhouse effect is for real; and the Dixie Chicks were right. Pin down a few of those basics and then perhaps we'll talk....

I know (because I've been so chided) that there are lots of good, right-thinking/left-leaning liberals out there who feel it's my responsibility to "understand" you. These are good people; unlike you assholes, they voted the right way. But this is why in true progressive circles the word liberal attracts adjectives such as "wishy-washy," "self-serving" and "useless." ...

You've been duped, and the Bushies are laughing at you behind your spineless backs right now. The Republicans don't care about you; they just wanted your vote so they can stay in power and make their oil-and-blood-soaked cronies even richer.... They're going to toss you a minuscule tax cut in exchange for under-funding public education and social services....

They're going to shower the pharmaceutical companies with excess profits while denying you life-saving medical attention. They're going to let corporate conglomerates fill the air you breathe with carcinogens while they discourage clean-energy research. They're going to insist the ozone layer's OK until y'all bake your little red asses off....

And you bought into it all because you're afraid. And you're afraid because they scared you. And it was all so unnecessary....

And some day, you might figure that out. Meanwhile, you deserve what we all got thanks to you, you bastards.

Mencken predicts Dubya ('04)

This was all over the net in late 2004:

Words to the Wise, from H.L. Mencken 84 years ago, Foretelling the Election of George W. Bush as president:

When a candidate for public office faces the voters he does not face men of sense; he faces a mob of men whose chief distinguishing mark is that they are quite incapable of weighing ideas, or even of comprehending any save the most elemental -- men whose whole thinking is done in terms of emotion, and whose dominant emotion is dread of what they cannot understand. So confronted, the candidate must either bark with the pack, or count himself lost. His one aim is to disarm suspicion, to arouse confidence in his orthodoxy, to avoid challenge. If he is a man of convictions, of enthusiasm, or self-respect, it is cruelly hard…

The larger the mob, the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first rate man occasionally fights his way through, carrying even a mob with him by the force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the fight must be waged chiefly at second or third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically the most devious and mediocre -- the man who can most adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum.

The Presidency tends, year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move toward a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their hearts desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.

--H.L. Mencken, The Baltimore Evening Sun, July 26, 1920

Snopes says this is a true quote from Mencken.

How anyone can vote for Dubya ('04)

[I wrote this in July 2004 (just days before I found the Crowther essay below).]

I do but I don't understand how anyone can vote for Bush. It's so damn frustrating. I don't even know how to begin.

When I heard on the way home last night that Bush said he wants to be a “peace President”, I wanted to write a letter to the L.A. Times, but every time I began drafting one in my head, there were too many outrages to address. Also, I’m torn between just venting and actually trying to persuade, to make a difference, to change someone’s mind.

Here's a sampling of thoughts that kept me tossing and turning in bed early this morning….

Bush voters claim:

- It's his character. He lies every time he opens his mouth. Not just about personal pecadillos but major earth-shaking, world-changing shit. And there are self-dealing conflicts of interest everywhere in his administration. Not to mention his draft-dodging, drunken youth and incompetent business management.

- He stands by his convictions. Even when they're proved wrong. His arrogance is breath-taking. Worse, his spoken convictions are almost meaningless. He’s a liar. You have to watch his actions, which no one does, dammit! Every initiative is given a great-sounding name, even if it accomplishes the opposite. (He’s a liar.)

- He cut my taxes. That's easy if you agree to so much debt that your children will lead worse lives than you. He cut your taxes and raised your children’s and grandchildren’s taxes. Plus, he gave you a few hundred dollars and he gave his corporate and plutocrat friends millions upon millions. And this while the country is at war. Why is it illegal to buy votes with cash, but not with tax cuts that make no fiscal sense?

- He's down-to-earth. Good old American anti-intellectualism. And how the hell do people who say this manage to ignore his platinum-spoon upbringing?

- He's a believer. He’s sanctimonious, alright, but tell me something he's done as Jesus would.

- He’s one of us. If you’re Republican, white, upper-class, Christian, heterosexual, and stupid (closed-minded).

- He's fighting our enemies. No, he evaded military service. He's sending your children to die fighting the wrong enemies, while spying on everyone’s every action and keeping the public off-balance with empty threats and Richard Reid shoe dances in airports.

- He's good for the economy. If you’re in the right tax bracket. How secure is your job? How much are you saving? And just look at the deficit and the projected deficits!

I think sometimes it's just like sports. One team (political party) versus another. Never mind what the teams mean or stand for or accomplish. Once you pick a team, you turn off your mind, shout the slogans, and root. What makes a diehard fan? How do you convince a diehard fan to switch sides? Is it even possible? I gave up such fan behavior in high school, when I realized how stupid and even embarrassing it was. Is the fan mentality just perpetually juvenile? How do you make someone like that grow up?

I'm so furious at the way this game is played. Bush and team are almost as good as Reagan was at the Big Lie. And when they lie, the mainstream media won't say so. They won’t even express skepticism. That would be disrespectful, unpatriotic, and against the rules of serious journalism. Some pundits will point out the lies, but no Bush believers pay attention to them, because all those liberal pundits hate Bush and they're expected to say he's lying. The opposing candidates won't call Bush a liar because they're too polite, and “people don't like negative politics”.

The diehard Bush fans won't be swayed by anything, and the relative handful of thoughtful swayable voters probably would be turned off by a candidate constantly saying, “He's lying.” (Although “There he goes again.” might work!)

There is no objective watchdog people listen to and believe in. No one who can point out the lies, make people listen, and change their minds.

Where's a true investigative journalist when you need one? Why won't someone list all Bush's promises during the last campaign and evaluate them?

I think a lot of it is plain stupidity. Honestly, it's people who don't have open minds. They're stupid.

What can I do? I said at the top that I don’t even know how to begin, and that’s part of the problem. (When I’m in the mood to believe in vast right-wing conspiracies, I think this may even be by design. [See Is Obama Trying to Do Too Much? in this blog!]) He’s so terribly wrong about so many things, where and how do I begin to argue or fight? If we all feel this way, we can’t fight!