Bush = Idiot

Read it on KevinWillis.net

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Is Bush an Idiot? I dunno, but he's not the one campaigning against a sitting president who cannot run for re-election.

In Forrest Gump's Evil Twin (which, in the email I get from Alternet, is billed as "Bush = Idiot"), Stephen Pizzo continues the left's and liberal's interesting process of running against a president who cannot run again, and calling Bush, and folks who voted for him, and anybody who'd consider it or disagree with them about pretty much anything, idiots.

As Spock might say, "Fascinating, captain."

Pizzo writes:

How extraordinary. Something is happening here that has never happened in America's history. A consensus is sweeping the nation. Not that the war in Iraq is wrong, or that oil companies are screwing us blue, or that the climate is going to hell, or that good-paying jobs are being replaced by low-paying jobs, or that our national health care system is a disgrace, or that that the rich are getting a lot richer while the middle class gets poorer.

While all that's true, and more and more folks are getting it, that's not the consensus of which I speak.

Amazing. While I admit our health care system, although much better than it was 50 years ago, and more widely available (if lacking nostalgically pleasing house calls), could be much improved, what sort of alternate reality do these folks live in (oh, I forgot, duh: Alternet!). While opinion polls indicate a downward trend on the wisdom of Iraq, or how the war is going, or how it's being handled, a consense that the war is "wrong" simply isn't there. Except on the left. Maybe it should be there, maybe it would be if everybody understood how bad war is, but it's just not so. And there's no evidence to support such a claim. But perhaps I'm picking nits.

But someone should, because it doesn't stop there. Good-paying jobs (undefined by Pizzo, but let's define them as jobs paying $30k or above, for the sake of argument, although you could make that break just about anywhere) have been growing steadily. There are more now than ever before, and more now than there was last year and the year before that. By any actual measurement of the data. Maybe it has nothing to do with Bush or Repblicans, maybe it is a residual Clinton effect, maybe it's being engineered in secret by Democrats in congress, or maybe it would just be ten times better if we didn't have Bush in the Whitehouse. But that ain't the point. The point is, good-paying jobs are not being replaced by low-paying jobs. In fact, there are more of both.

Picking nits, yes. Okay. It could probably be better. John Kerry would have rocked our world, had we been smart enough to elect him. Certainly, being at War in Iraq, with all that entails, must be restraining the economy from where it would be, if only. But that's not the point. The point is, good paying jobs are not being replaced by low paying jobs by any measurement you can come up with. At least, not in America. I presume the author isn't referring to Europe or Canada and blaming that on Bush.

Ooops! Almost forgot about "oil companies screwing us blue". Yeah, they make a lot of money. Of course, most of that is enabled by politicians who then get to have their cake and eat it too by blaming the oil companies. And, the fact it, it's the price the market will bear. If it gets to be too much, we'll start biking everywhere, telecommuting, using alternative fuels--something. Right now, we aren't, because the high price of gasoline isn't too high for us to pay. And, by "screwing us blue", shouldn't that discourage such voracious consumption, thus protecting the environment? And lessening our dependence on foreign oil? Isn't that a good thing?

Part of the problem is the market. And the market would be much calmer if America allowed drilling in the Gulf and in ANWR. Apparently, the problem isn't bad enough to let us tap our own supplies, so I think "screwing us blue" may be hyperbole. But that truly is picking a nit: they make a lot of money, and we're paying a lot of money, so--admittedly, with our full cooperating--they are kind of screwing us blue. Okay.

Oh, and the rich getting richer while the middle class gets poorer? Well, there are two reasons that they don't say the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. The first one is, of course, that the poor are getting richer, too. Just not as fast as the rich are getting richer. But they are getting richer. Which is a good thing, isn't it? The second is, they feel their base in terms of votes and donations will be found in the middle class who feel squeezed in the modern economy, even if the external reality is, in fact, better than it has ever been in every conceivable way. So they want them to feel they are getting poorer, and need to vote for liberals.

But those measurements that show the middle-class getting "poorer" are, in fact, aggregate numbers. The ranks of the lower-middle class have been growing. Why? Upper- and middle-middle class folks falling downwards? No, indeed. It's the upper-lower classes and middle-lower classes breaking into the middle class. So what they are complaining about, in fact, is the poor getting richer. Because that puts more lower-middle class folks in the sample. Huh.

But let's get to the nut. The real argument that liberals have for their ideology and Democrats have against Republicans. And Steve Pizzo writes:

Here it is: The president of the United States is a moron.

Yes, stupid, dumb as common road gravel. And not figuratively, but literally. George W. Bush, president of the world's last remaining superpower, is a moron. Forrest Gump's evil twin.

And, after several other uses of "idiot" and "moron" and "worse President in history", he writes these nuggets:

One of the trademarks of a moron is contempt for facts that challenge the simple but comfortable fictions that rule their daily routines. You can drag a moron to a library, but you can't force him to learn.

In fact morons get downright testy when someone challenges what they think they know. We saw this trait earlier this week when Bush was asked if he thought Don Rumsfeld should resign. The moron lashed out at the questioner, dashed into his imaginary phone booth and emerged as The Decider. "I'm the decider," he pronounced, with Mussolini-like swagger. You see, scratch a moron and beneath that smirking, ignorance-is-bliss exterior, you discover a fundamental truth: Beauty may be only skin deep, but moron goes right to the bone.

And ironic comment from someone who gets all the major assertions in regards to verifiable information wrong.
Ah, well.

You can read it all for yourself. The implicit point Pizzo doesn't quite get to is, however, touched on by a commentor. Everyone who voted for or supported Bush is a moron, too!

The commentor writes:

I've got to a gree that George W is a moron. In fact, it could be said he's the moron's moron. However that's not the problem. The problem is, that when over fifty percent of yanks are morons(he did get reelected) the odds are you're going to end up with a moron as President.
Unkind i know but the truth often is.

Another writes:

Now we know why he is President. This non thinking, totally oblivious idiot is in complete and total denial. Just listen to his words. Its a form of brain washing. NO facts, no links, no information, just the rote repeating of his church leaders. Its amazing to sit back and watch. Its like an experiment and the results are shocking. How really pathetic that he relects millions of Americans.

An interesting complaint, given the author of the article also had no real facts, no links, no documentation for his assertions. But that's not an issue, naturally.

Okay, one more, any more you gotta go check the article out for yourself. There's nearly 300 comments on this, almost all of them of the "Bush is an idiot" type or, as a variation, "Bush is smart but evil". Like this one!

Here is another non-american opinion, for what its worth.
Thinking of Bush as a moron is a great mistake. Read the evaluations made of him by one of his college professors. That he is envious, vengeful, unprincipled, lazy, a liar and emotional illiterate and other beautiful attributes, I have no doubt.

But believing he is a moron and acting accordingly, has given the democrats and the oposition many catastrophic surprises.

His values are not the same as those of most of the people on this blogs, perhaps excfepting the currency trader, who I hope is not holding any dollars. Anybody here believes that he gives a damn about the people of Iraq - or any other of the people under his beloved dictators - whether they have a democracy or not? No, he cares about the revenues of the oil companies and he has done a tremendously good job on this. Not giving a damn for taking the average americans (and his voters) for a ride.

You can think about his other personal priorities and will probably arrive at the same conclusions, he and his friends are doing fabulously.

His goals are personal and short term, and for this he uses the people who still believe in the greatness of USA's values, those who are afraid of everything beyond their borders, those who are afraid of change, those who like him have as main values the number of digits in their bank account - often an offshore account. Those for whom civilization, culture, feelings and empathy don't mean anything.

Sheesh. Who knows? Maybe it'll work for them. Maybe it won't. The only thing I can guarantee you is that the approach isn't objective, factual, honest, or even-handed. And I'm dubious about how well "If you don't agree with us you're stupid" works as an argument for your point of view.