WHY WE HATE BUSH: It's the Stolen Election, Stupid (Via Michele)
Bush is guilty of a single irredeemable act so heinous and anti-American that Nixon's corruption and Reagan's intellectual inferiority pale by comparison. No matter what he does, Democrats and Republicans who love their country more than their party will never forgive him for it. Bush stole the presidency.
- Ted Rall
Michele's not going to like what I have to say here, but this isn't the first time we've disagreed, nor is it likely to be the last. (Don't hate me because I'm beautiful....) Normally, we agree that Ted Rall is a jackass, and one of the biggest reasons that Liberals are often portrayed as clueless morons. This time, though, Rall has hit on one of my hot buttons, and I think he is right on the money. Deal with it, y'all....
Neither time, history, nor eroding memories will change the fact that George W. Bush stole the 2000 Presidential election. Republicans can whine and moan all they like (Mark and Owen, don't even bother; I KNOW what you're going to say), but it doesn't change the truth. THAT is why Democrats detest Bush. Of course, Rall, as always, is a bit more graphic:
True, Democrats loathe Dubya with greater intensity than any Republican standard-bearer in modern political history. Even the diabolical Richard Nixon--who, after all, created the EPA, went to China and imposed price controls to stop corporate gouging--rates higher in liberal eyes.... Let me explain.
First but not foremost, Bush's detractors despise him viscerally, as a man. Where working-class populists see him as a smug, effeminate frat boy who wouldn't recognize a hard day's work if it kicked him in his self-satisfied ass, intellectuals see a simian-faced idiot unqualified to mow his own lawn, much less lead the free world. Another group, which includes me, is more patronizing than spiteful. I feel sorry for the dude; he looks so pathetic, so out of his depth, out there under the klieg lights, squinting, searching for nouns and verbs, looking like he's been snatched from his bed and beamed in, and is still half asleep, not sure where he is. Each speech looks as if Bush had been beamed from his bed fast asleep. And he's willfully ignorant. On Fox News, Bush admits that he doesn't even read the newspaper: "I glance at the headlines just to kind of [sic] a flavor for what's moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read [sic] the news themselves." All these takes on Bush boil down to the same thing: The guy who holds the launch codes isn't smart enough to know that's he's stupid. And that's scary.
And Rall is right. Bush is the Leader of the Free World, and yet he can best be described as a willfully ignorant intellectual lightweight. A man who cannot even be bothered to read a newspaper is making decisions and formulating policies that effect each and everyone of us every day.
On top of the ignorance, there is the dishonesty. Are these the qualities we want in the leader of our country? Are we satisfied with a C student being in charge of the classroom? I seem to remember a certain recent Democratic President being subjected to an impeachment trial for lying- and his lies didn't even result in the loss of American lives. For a man who promised to restore honesty, integrity, and ethics to the White House, he has been a spectacular flameout.
I am looking forward to November 2004, if for no other reason than to enjoy the opportunity for payback. Bush is more vulnerable now than at any time post-9.11. He is a clueless C student who is helpless without his handlers and generally completely out of his element. I look forward to watching Howard Dean or Wesley Clark chop him up in a debate. I believe that a year from now the American electorate will have realized that the Emperor has no clothes. The seeds of that awareness are already being sown.
