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Presidentcokedupfratboy Donating Member (994 posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 03:51 PM
Original message
The hypocrisy of Jonah Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg, son of Clinton Crotch-sniffer Lucianne, says it is time to cut our Worst President Ever, GW Bush, some slack.

Funny, I never heard of a GOPologists doing the same for Clinton.

Here is his screed:

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-goldberg31aug31,0,1078585.column?coll=la-opinion-rightrail

JONAH GOLDBERG
Jonah Goldberg: Give Bush a Break
The president's most stubborn critics won't stop beating the Iraq and Katrina drums despite much success elsewhere.
Jonah Goldberg

August 31, 2006

LORD KNOWS I have my problems with President Bush. He taps the federal coffers like a monkey smacking the bar for another cocaine pellet in an addiction study. Some of his sentences give me the same sensation as falling backward in one of those "trust" exercises, in which you just have to hope things work out. Yes, the Iraq invasion has gone badly, and to deny this is to suggest that Bush meant for things to turn out this way, which is even crueler than saying he failed to get it right.

But you know what? It's time to cut the guy some slack.

Of course, I will get hippo-choking amounts of e-mail from Bush-haters telling me that all I ever do is cut Bush slack. But these folks grade on the curve. By their standards, anything short of demanding that a live, half-starved badger be sewn into his belly flunks.

Besides, the Bush-bashers have lost credibility. The most delicious example came this week when it was finally revealed that Colin Powell's oak-necked major-domo Richard Armitage — and not some star chamber neocon — "outed" Valerie Plame, the spousal prop of Washington's biggest ham, Joe Wilson. Now it turns out that instead of "Bush blows CIA agent's cover to silence a brave dissenter" — as Wilson practices saying into the mirror every morning — the story is, "One Bush enemy inadvertently taken out by another's friendly fire."

And then there's Hurricane Katrina. Yes, the federal government could have responded better. And of course there were real tragedies involved in that disaster. But you know what? Bad stuff happens during disasters, which is why we don't call them tickle-parties.

The anti-Bush chorus, including enormous segments of the mainstream media, see Katrina as nothing more than a good stick for beating on piñata Bush's "competence." The hypocrisy is astounding because the media did such an abysmal job covering the reality of New Orleans (contrary to their reports, there were no bands of rapists, no disproportionate deaths of poor blacks, nothing close to 10,000 dead, etc.). It seems indisputable that Katrina highlighted the tragedy of New Orleans rather than create it. Long before Katrina, New Orleans was a dysfunctional city in a state with famously corrupt and incompetent leadership, many of whose residents think that it is the job of the federal government to make everyone whole.

The Mississippi coast was hit harder by Katrina than New Orleans was. And although New Orleans' levee failure was a unique problem — one the local leadership ignored for decades — the devastation in Mississippi was in many respects more severe. And you know what? Mississippi has the same federal government as Louisiana, and reconstruction there is going gangbusters while, after more than $120 billion in federal spending, New Orleans remains a basket case. Here's a wacky idea: Maybe it's not all Bush's fault.

Then, of course, there's the war on terror. Democrats love to note that Bush hasn't caught Osama bin Laden yet, as if this is the most vital metric for success. Yes, it'd be nice to catch Bin Laden — no doubt Ramsey Clark, the top legal gun for both LBJ and Saddam Hussein, will be looking for a new client soon. But even nicer than catching Bin Laden is not having thousands of dead Americans in New York, Washington and L.A. Contrary to all expert predictions, there hasn't been a successful attack on the homeland since 9/11. Indeed, the current issue of the Atlantic Monthly contains a (typically) long, exhaustively reported cover story by James Fallows about how the U.S. is in fact winning the war on terror, thanks largely to Bush's policies (though Fallows works hard not to credit Bush).

Political dissatisfaction with the president rests entirely on Iraq and overall Bush fatigue. The rest amounts to little more than Iraq-motivated brickbats gussied up to look like free-standing complaints. That's how hate works: It looks for more excuses to hate in the same way that fire looks for more stuff to burn.

That's why Bush's Democratic critics flit about like bilious butterflies, exploiting each superficial or transient problem just long enough to score some points in the polls and then moving on. Bush's Medicare plan was an egregious corporate giveaway, they cried, until seniors overwhelmingly reported that they like it. And the Patriot Act? Can anyone even remember what the Democrats were whining about? I think it had something to do with libraries that were never searched.

Look, things could obviously be a lot better. But they could be a lot worse too. John Kerry could be president.

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MADem Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 03:53 PM
Response to Original message
1. Ugh, how can you read the words of that mindless, waddling twit?
He's an idiot who spews garbage, just like his mama. His words have NO WEIGHT.
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 03:54 PM
Response to Original message
2. Isn't he LBJ's son?
Little Jonah, another right wing hater who couldn't hack it as a McDonald's trainee and yet he is opining on how the world could be so much worse if Senator Kerry were President. They are so cute to observe. Its like our world has a great big zoo filled with "conservative" animals.
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11 Bravo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:08 PM
Response to Reply #2
6. Jonah was breast-fed by the hideous Lucianne Goldberg ...
until he was well into his 30's. Then Mommy helped him pretend to have a "career". But he's a patriot, while you and I, Boss ... well, we're just part of the "hate America" crowd.
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:20 PM
Response to Reply #6
9. I ask myself that question - Why do I hate America?
Because we allow constitution hating ignorant motherfuckers to suck on the tit of freedom, while doing their damndest to prevent those they hate to nuzzle up.

I have it carved in coin:

to support and defend the constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and DOMESTIC. Hell, we don't have to worry about fighting them over here, they already are here and they go to church every Sunday right down and up and over the road.
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11 Bravo Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:27 PM
Response to Reply #9
10. I read you Lima Charles, BOSS.
Every time I get close to saying, "Ah, fuck it, let the bastards have the government they deserve"; I come here to get energized. More often than not, that energy comes via one of your posts.
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BOSSHOG Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:37 PM
Response to Reply #10
11. Roger that Teammate - We are an Army of Two - UUUUURah!
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SmokingJacket Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 03:55 PM
Response to Original message
3. Why does anyone pay this guy money?
If not for his repellent, loud-mouthed mother, he wouldn't even have a writing gig.

He's dumb as the proverbial box of rocks.
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proud2BlibKansan Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 03:56 PM
Response to Original message
4. Cut the guy some slack?
Okay as soon as he cuts some slack for the 2600+ dead soldiers, the 1500+ dead on the Gulf Coast and the 3000+ dead on 9/11.

7,000 dead means he ain't getting no slack.
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MrModerate Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:01 PM
Response to Original message
5. He seems ready to cut Bush slack on . . .
The 10,000 other things he's failed at, like running the treasury, using science to inform wise public policy, maintaining human rights standards inside and outside the US, fostering a reasonable balance between taxes and expenditures, maintaining anything like practical working relationships with most of the world, focusing the country on finding real solutions to crises with Social Security and Medicare, sustaining valuable environmental standards, etc., etc.

Slack is definitely the word to associate with Bush. It describes his performance on just.about.everything.
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galloglas Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:09 PM
Response to Original message
7. It's time to cut the guy... off!
"It's time to cut the guy some slack." ??

How about "Cut and Run"?

As in CUT the bastard's term short with an Impeachment, then tar and feather him and RUN his ass out of town on a rail !!



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Greyhound Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:09 PM
Response to Original message
8. Why did you ask me to waste 3 minutes of my life reading this crap?
Edited on Thu Aug-31-06 04:09 PM by greyhound1966
I want my time back. :mad:

No offense intended toward you. :toast:
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EST Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 04:50 PM
Response to Original message
12. I find it fascinating with a rubber glove, commode cleaning
Edited on Thu Aug-31-06 04:58 PM by EST
overtone, this swimming through someone's thought processes. The cherry picking of facts and massaging two sets of circumstances together that are only minimally related is amazing.

?" Mississippi has the same federal government as Louisiana, and reconstruction there is going gangbusters while, after more than $120 billion in federal spending, New Orleans remains a basket case. Here's a wacky idea: Maybe it's not all Bush's fault."

This idiot knows full well that there is is percentage of the population that will get dazzled by the association and connect it up that there has been $120 billion spent on New Orleans with no results. His entire argument is one big lie with false associations sprinkled throughout.

I really wonder if it takes some specific training to make my mind work like that or does it just show up like an instinct.
If this represents the best and the brightest, how the hell can they so misrepresent reality?

Must be running internet explorer on his i/o drivers.
K & R
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JHB Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Thu Aug-31-06 05:23 PM
Response to Original message
13. What success elsewhere?
What are they talking about? A pile of talking points that rest on a bed of horseshit?
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