Digby says it better than I can.
Have we ever had such an angry, privileged, snotty, immature president in the history of this country?
Bush can still not give even one example of a mistake he’s made — except appointing certain people he appointed that he won’t name. (It must be Paul O’Neill and Larry Lindsay because they are the only ones he fired.)
As he has always been, he remains, a piece of shit.
Shrub was obviously better prepared tonight and he didn’t lose it. He did infinitely better than last week. But that just means he was dreadful, not spectacularly dreadful. Kerry was amazing. He was even better than the first time, and there’s no comparison between the two men. One’s a real leader, the other’s a nobody.
Of course, bush will get high marks simply because, unlike last week, he came out alive. But just barely. Listening to him talk about his environmental achievements made me want to cover my face, it was so pitiful. And that’s just one example.
And was I imagining it, or was bush SHOUTING during the first half hour?? I thoiught he was going to lunge out and attack somebody.
1
By Devi
Now, now. Bush appropriated $3 million to protecting the wetlands! And he’s protecting us from off-road semi trucks.
October 8, 2004 @ 9:23 pm | Comment
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By richard
Thank god for the shrub!
October 8, 2004 @ 9:35 pm | Comment
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By LANGEE
I tried to be as impartial as humanly possible when I watched the debate tonight. And Bush did better this time around, that is, for Bush. But as I watched Bush go on tirade after tirade, speaking in very caustic tones, and saying the same things over and over again; it struck me. I was reminded of the old films of Hitler’s speeches. Whereas in the case with Bush you always sense this seething caldron of anger, hate, malice. Very sharp words, one attempt at propaganda after another. Spewing lie after lie.
My fear is that the majority of Americans are just not aware of the vast depths of corruption the Bush Administration is really involved in. When Bush spoke on his environmental policy tonight I literally cringed. Here is the supposed highest and most honored statesman in the country telling lies so boldface, he could hardly contain the revealing body language which always betrays the liar.
The wincing, the irregular breathing. The need to raise ones voice several octaves higher, the flailing of the arms. Mother Nature’s erratic lines on the human polygraph of body language. Bush displayed all the classics tonight. Bush’s performance in tonight’s debate should be used in law enforcement training films. To better educate detectives on how to spot a liar.
It need not be a long film. For as the polls show, the majority of Americans already see Bush for the liar he is.
October 8, 2004 @ 10:03 pm | Comment
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By Sailorman
Bush destroyed Iraq.
Saddam destroyed Bush.
October 8, 2004 @ 10:09 pm | Comment
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By Forrest
Yet again, I’ve compiled more poll data on my site…
Check here if you are interested!
Its great to see the Dems faring so well in these debates… If everyone was forced to watch them and consider them intelligently, Kerry would win this election in a landslide. But freedom to think critically allows for the freedom to be stupid as well… we’ll see how this goes… for now, I’m very optimistic!
October 8, 2004 @ 11:20 pm | Comment
6
By pete
William Rivers Pitt at truthout.com has an after-the-debate article that is an extreme indictment of Bush. It is a strong, tough piece.Not necessarily on bad policy or bad decisions, but on what comes down to the psychological make up Bush is showing of himself. Watching Bush yell when giving some of his answers, watching Bush jump off his stool when Kerry struck a cord mercilessly and then hurtling himself around the platform, obnoxiously ignoring the moderator, is to watch a person out of emotional control, who is running after the object (re-election) he fears loosing so much he is compelled to try to obtain it without regard to any of society’s norms or in the case of this debate, the standard rules of mature conduct. Bush’s run for re-election to me was encapsulated by this debate picturing for the whole nation to see his low level of self-control and his absurdly deficient intellectual powers. This has been our president, he should not be elected again.
Kerry stood the man. It was a beautiful sight. Here was Kerry who has been wrongly and maliciously marked as a cheat, a non-hero, a philanderer, a liar and even a traitor, standing before our country speaking curtiously, forcefully and honestly to the American public without demeaning Bush, but telling us the country requires another kind of a president. There was a man with presidential qualities on that platform Thursday night and it was not bush. It was KERRY. I have no doubt that those same qualities that made Kerry a leader and a hero in Vietnam are what we saw in Kerry at this second debate and if elected we will see in him as President. My faith in the future of the USA has been elevated, because Kerry is running for President. Hopefully, he will win. Then I believe he will bring the USA back from the edge that bush, his gang of liars and the Gop have stupidly and greedily push US to.
A word to the SwiftBoat Liars, I give you the one finger salute for your lies. You need to give up on your thirty years of bitterness and get a life.
October 9, 2004 @ 3:54 am | Comment
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By Patrick
From Paul Begala on CNN’s debate blog (http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/blog/10/08/one.blog/):
“Bush just said: “I hear there’s rumors on the Internets.” Is there some secret second Internet I don’t know about? Perhaps that’s where Bush gets the information that tells him things are so peachy in Iraq and the economy’s strong. ”
From Bush himself: “I guess you’d say
I’m a good steward of the land.”
He should really try getting into comedy if this re-election thing falls through.
October 9, 2004 @ 5:18 am | Comment
8
By blah
“Is there some secret second Internet I don’t know about?”
Actually, yes there is: http://www.internet2.edu/about/
Except it’s not secret.
October 9, 2004 @ 5:44 am | Comment
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By 403200
testing…
October 9, 2004 @ 6:36 am | Comment
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By 403200
Objectivity is a rare commodity come election time, it would seem.
October 9, 2004 @ 6:38 am | Comment
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By 403200
And someone even had the audacity to start the paragraph with “I tried to be as impartial as humanly possible…” before comparing Bush with Hitler.
I blame the American education system. By which I mean Ricki and Jerry Springers.
October 9, 2004 @ 6:40 am | Comment
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By LANGEE
It is odd that many Jews I know see the signs of Bush’s actions similar to how Hitler started. Maybe you should educate yourself and study history.
God fearing wonderful Bush?
October 9, 2004 @ 11:18 am | Comment
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By richard
Langee, the comparison isn’t a new one, and was addressed in this article before the Iraq war.
October 9, 2004 @ 6:43 pm | Comment
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By Sam_S (ShenzhenRen)
There now, 403, don’t you feel rebuked? The full gamut of towering intellects, I mean the whole range from Truthout to Counterpunch — and doesn’t that just about cover everyone who counts?– they all agree, and now “many Jews I know” have chimed in. That absolutely proves it–Bush really IS Hitler.
October 10, 2004 @ 1:01 am | Comment
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By pete
Sam. You overstate your case so as to make it a mockery of intellectual honesty and effort. Of course, no one could be Hitler, it doesn’t need to be said unless you doubt the common sense and powers of observation of people.
I have for a long time observed the political life in the States, and have been concerned with the developments of the Repub party and its control of the U.S. government. I think that parallels can be honestly and rationally drawn between what happen in the 1920-30s in Germany and what is happening now in the U.S. In Germany at that time there was a convergence of forces and circumstances that allowed Hitler and his thugs to manipulate the German political system for Hitler to gain control as a part of the open system which he then bent to his will by propaganda, proforma democratic and criminal means to create a totalitarian/fascist state. This was done because the German public had been propagandized or threatened into being uncritical of Hitler and his government.
It is certainly within the realm of reality that one party could develop such control over the branches of the U.S. government through propaganda of fear and warmongering and threats of and eliminating people’s civil rights of free speech, assembly, press, etc. and the unlawful use of police power to protect the governing party (like removing the lady from the Laura Bush’s meeting for complaining about the death of her son in Iraq; using police to set up barriers on public land to prevent meaningful protests against Bush and Cheney at public venues; using police power to intimidate voters to not vote such as was happening in Jeb Bush’s Florida and the other ongoing tricks of the Florida Gop in trying to fix the vote there; using police (FBI) to intimidate people so they would not go to NY to be active in the anti-Bush protests; using police power to illegally try to obtain information on legal meetings of persons who oppose the Bush adminitration as happened in the Mid-West; police spying on the American public; use of the Patriot Act that has a chilling effect on the normal use of public libraries, to delve into people’s private lives without the 4th Amendment constitutional protect of judicial judgment on the propriety of police searches and seizures; the Repub effort to expand the Patriot Act by adopting Patriot Act II; the placement of the highly disreputable character Tom Delay in a significant position of national power with his self-proven disregard in the democratic processes we the people have adhered to for 228 years; and power of corporations and business in the making of the laws; the fawning of the politicians for their money and the rise of the business-military complex; there are many, many more acts and attitudes of the Repubs and the far religious right that speak to their desire and need of control to impose their world and religious views on the rest of the public.) Yes, there are facts that rational people can see which would lead them to question whether America is on the way to a fascist state.
Fortunately, I do not think it will happen because people are starting to speak up, to criticize not only Bush and his henchmen, but also to bring light on the dishonesty of the system in Washington and the money and the lobbists, the failure and laziness of the 4th estate to act in the objective interests of the public and questioning the weakness of the Democratic party by its failure to oppose the party in power and present the truth to the public. However, not to let the prime mover in protecting our democratic systems from the likes of BushCo, Delay, Limbaugh, Hannity and the other anti-democratic millionaire talking heads and the police forces, we the people are starting to stir and see the reality being created around us by the anti-democratic forces and are saying no to the fascist tendences of the right and the Repubs.
October 10, 2004 @ 4:51 am | Comment
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By richard
Of course bush isn’t Hitler; Hitler had a mustache. But there are definitely similarities in the way each amassed power. bush is not a genocidal maniac and I don’t believe he has totally evil intentions. But if you examine the way Hitler used a attack as a way to silence his enemies and justify sweeping legislation that stifled dissent, and when you look at the increasingly thuggish tactics of the far-right, the comparison is worth thinking about. Again, shrub isn’t Hitler but some of his party’s tactics certainly bring to mind Germany in 1933.
October 10, 2004 @ 10:56 am | Comment