Crush All Boxes!

W interacts with the 'help'
Originally uploaded by jonnybutter.

Known leftist agitator Will Saletan in Slate mockingly disposes of Bush's current stump-'global test'-canard in his most recent column. Actually, he pretty well disposes of Bush altogether, and not for the first time. Some people give Will crap, and I too have done, at times, but credit where it's due: he's been on to the con for a long time.

Proof, intelligence, spy photos. The pattern is obvious. The test isn't moral. It's factual..... [Bush is] not simply failing the test. He's refusing to take it.

Ouchy-ouch-ouch. Saletan strikes.

He defines credibility as agreement with himself. He reinterprets evidence of policy mistakes in postwar Iraq as evidence of success. In Thursday's debate, he dismissed unwelcome reports from that country as too offensive to heed.....Bush claims he has done all this to protect you. But that claim is precisely what's challenged by the evidence he conceals or disregards. ...And he expects you to applaud him for it, because he thinks you resent the French so much you'd rather have a president accountable to no one.

Why are conservative Democrats/moderate Republicans like Saletan getting so 'shrill'? Gee, you'd think the Bush Administration was anti-democratic! THAT couldn't be, though....

My little 'Debate Highlights' post, (below) was so easy to write (I left a lot of stuff out) that I'm sure I could write an entire book of W. Bush exegesis - it's like falling off a log! But, naturally, someone already has done that very well - two books, in fact. Mark Crispin Miller - author of 'The Bush Dyslexicon' - has a newer book called 'Cruel and Unusual'. I would highly recommend it, except that I get chest pains if I read more than a few pages at a time, so I haven't finished it. But I'm as loud a member of the Choir as I can manage, so I'm really missing out on only the chest pains.

Miller assembles many pertinent perfectly in-context Bush quotes. I present a few of them with no comment (other than emphasis) from either me or Miller:

Woodward, Bush At War

"I'm the commander. See, I don't need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

New Year's Eve 2002:

"You [a reporter] said we're headed into a war with Iraq. I don't know why you say that. I hope we're not headed to war with Iraq. I'm the person who gets to decide, not you."

The day before Inauguration Day 2001:

In 24 hours, I have the highest honor, and that's to become the Commander and Chief of the greatest nation in the world".

Interview in US News '02:

That's the great thing about democracy: occasionally there is a chance for the voters to express their belief or disbelief. I guess that chance will be coming down the road one of these days"