Why Bush is a scumbag, in a nutshell...

[dave123williams]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/opinion/02thu1.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

(registration required, I think)

The Great Divider:

As President Bush throws himself into the final days of a particularly nasty campaign season, he’s settled into a familiar pattern of ugly behavior. Since he can’t defend the real world created by his policies and his decisions, Mr. Bush is inventing a fantasy world in which to campaign on phony issues against fake enemies.

In Mr. Bush’s world, America is making real progress in Iraq. In the real world, as Michael Gordon reported in yesterday’s Times, the index that generals use to track developments shows an inexorable slide toward chaos. In Mr. Bush’s world, his administration is marching arm in arm with Iraqi officials committed to democracy and to staving off civil war. In the real world, the prime minister of Iraq orders the removal of American checkpoints in Baghdad and abets the sectarian militias that are slicing and dicing their country.

In Mr. Bush’s world, there are only two kinds of Americans: those who are against terrorism, and those who somehow are all right with it. Some Americans want to win in Iraq and some don’t. There are Americans who support the troops and Americans who don’t support the troops. And at the root of it all is the hideously damaging fantasy that there is a gulf between Americans who love their country and those who question his leadership.

Mr. Bush has been pushing these divisive themes all over the nation, offering up the ludicrous notion the other day that if Democrats manage to control even one house of Congress, America will lose and the terrorists will win. But he hit a particularly creepy low when he decided to distort a lame joke lamely delivered by Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts. Mr. Kerry warned college students that the punishment for not learning your lessons was to “get stuck in Iraq.” In context, it was obviously an attempt to disparage Mr. Bush’s intelligence. That’s impolitic and impolite, but it’s not as bad as Mr. Bush’s response. Knowing full well what Mr. Kerry meant, the president and his team cried out that the senator was disparaging the troops. It was a depressing replay of the way the Bush campaign Swift-boated Americans in 2004 into believing that Mr. Kerry, who went to war, was a coward and Mr. Bush, who stayed home, was a hero.

It’s not the least bit surprising or objectionable that Mr. Bush would hit the trail hard at this point, trying to salvage his party’s control of Congress and, by extension, his last two years in office. And we’re not naïve enough to believe that either party has been running a positive campaign that focuses on the issues.

But when candidates for lower office make their opponents out to be friends of Osama bin Laden, or try to turn a minor gaffe into a near felony, that’s just depressing. When the president of the United States gleefully bathes in the muck to divide Americans into those who love their country and those who don’t, it is destructive to the fabric of the nation he is supposed to be leading.

This is hardly the first time that Mr. Bush has played the politics of fear, anger and division; if he’s ever missed a chance to wave the bloody flag of 9/11, we can’t think of when. But Mr. Bush’s latest outbursts go way beyond that. They leave us wondering whether this president will ever be willing or able to make room for bipartisanship, compromise and statesmanship in the two years he has left in office.

[C_U_L8R]

1. must be a big nutshell :-)

[bananas]

6. Well he's a big nut

You need a big nutshell for a big nut.

[indepat]

2. We have nothing to fear but fear itself and the ubiquitous enemy within

[Dhalgren]

3. I was trying to remember a president who had come out and said,

during a time of war ("war" is what this president says, whether it's true or not), that the opposition party was in league with the nation's enemies. Dictator Bush has come right out and said that Democrats side with the "terrorists" against the USA, and he must be held accountable for this. This is so far beyond "politics" that it verges on the criminal. This country is closer to being torn apart by civil war than it has been since the 1860s and it can be laid at the feet of the Republican Party, that party's president, and the filthy profiteers who get rich off the (up to now) bloodless war against America. And that is what it is - a war against America. The Republicans realized, maybe ten years ago, that they hated America and all it stood for and they have worked to destroy our country ever since. This is just the latest evolution of their war against America and its traditions. The oddest part of this all is that the "terrorists" have their greatest allies in the Republican Party - and they know it...

[dave123williams]

5. Sure. That's why attacks increase *before* an election...

Technically, Bush and Al Queda benefit each other. As long as Al Queda is alive, Bush can claim he's a protector. As long as the GOP is in power, people have a reason to hate America. Simple.

[JAN8525]

4. COMAANDER & GRIEF !

I JUST HOPE DEMS MAKE IT DUBYAH DOING NOTHING FOR NEXT 2 YRS IS BETTER THEN LETTING HIM PASS AL THOSE BILLS THAT ELININATE OUR FREEDOMS! AND IF WE DO TAKE BOTH HOUSES I KNOW THE PEOPLE CAN PUSH IMPEACMENT ON HIM AND THEN GET HIM FOR THE WAR CRIMES HE SO DESERVES!

[alittlelark]

7. STUPIDITY is the problem...not divisiveness

The New World Order that has Corporations controlling over Goverments.... That is the stupidity.


There are not enough circuses or enough bread to make that happen - unless we are too stooooopid. They have been working on the 'dumbing down' for almost 30 years now.


I still believe in our young people.


I do not know a single person under the age of 30 who believes in this parasitically stoooooopid president.