My God...

The acorn does not fall far from the oak tree, does it?

One could argue senility, but the truth is that George H.W. Bush is the reason that George W. Bush is the Fuck-Up In Chief. Like father, like son. W. learned the art of double talk and dissembling from the best. Now that he's added President of the United States to his ever growing list of screw-ups, Dad has to ride to the rescue once again, extricate him from Iraq, clean him up, and make him look presentable to the public that already has tired of watching "Sonny" step in macaca one time too many. Let's count the failures.

The economy.

The war on terror.

Afghanistan in near shambles

Iraq has gone spectacularly wrong.

Hurricane Katrina and the nearly 300,000 people who cannot live in New Orleans anymore.

Repudiation by the voters two weeks ago.

Now "Sonny" will spend the last two years of his term being investigated 30 ways to Sunday by a gleeful Democratic Congress and may even face impeachment proceedings. From where I sit, he's been thoroughly discredited and NOW Dad speaks up for him. NOW Dad defends a son who has behaved indefensibly. Now make no mistake, Bush the Elder was a waste during his term as President, but he at least respected the office. Bush the Younger has shit himself in the Oval Office and has shit upon the office itself. Now comes the father who says criticizing or second guessing the son will "cause anxiety". What in the unholy crimson hell does that mean? More anxiety than has already been caused by this kakistocracy the last six years? I think Barbara Bush (the Matriarch) was correct when she said "I think people have had their fill of the Bushes", in response to the news that Jeb Bush would not seek re-election as governor of FL nor run for President in 2008.

The one spot-on comment that's come from anyone named Bush in a long time.

I knew there was something off about Rupert Murdoch but I could never figure out quite what it was until this came along. "This" would be OJ Simpson's book "IF I Did It" and television interview and all the promo that would come with it. First of all, First Amendment issues aside, I was never in favor of this kind of self-serving, soulless vomit being belched up for public consumption. But there's a larger point here and I think Blumenthal speaks very well to it. The only reason the FOX news channel drones like O'Reilly, Hannity & Colmes, et al are decrying "moral decline" in America is because, precisely because IT MAKES MONEY TO DO SO. So while on the one hand, Murdoch's acolytes decry the "filth in the liberal media", they are stocking the public discourse with the very filth it condemns on the other hand. It's like spreading chum for sharks and then crying out, "Sharks in the water! The beaches aren't safe! Sharks in the water!" Or putting an elephant in the living room and whipping up a frenzy about why no one is talking about the elephant in the living room! The flap about the OJ book is one example of this. Now he's got a bunch of us here talking about Simpson's guilt or innocence, or whether the First Amendment should protect this sort of thing, or the credibility of Judith Regan to talk about this as an abuse victim (when she may be just an opportunist), or a hundred other things, when the real point is being missed by a pretty wide margin. The point being, why is a sleazy news outlet like FOX being allowed to put such filth on the public airwaves and stir up hysteria in order to make a few people rich beyond the dreams of avarice? Are we not better than this base form of discourse posing as "news" and "debate"? Do we not play into their hands by indulging this?

Isn't this the very kind of cynical pandering to which we've been held hostage for the last 6 years of the Shrub Presidency? We should know better by now.

FOX (aka the News Corp.) modus operandi as follows:

Toss a bomb into a crowd. Watch the shrapnel fly and the people scream in horror and run away. Then, in the midst of the blood and triage efforts, have some cynical hack say something really dumb like, "People ought to know better than to gather in crowds like this. Someone might throw a bomb in the crowd and cause all this hysteria." This serves to distract from the real question that sane people are asking like, "Who the hell threw the bomb?"

It's in the category of saying a woman was raped because she was wearing a short skirt and heels. And no one should think for one minute that FOX "news" gives a good goddamn about "morals" or "values". Like its founder, it is amoral and opportunistic. Nothing matters but money and power. O'Rielly doesn't give a tinker's damn about women. The truth is, he's been accused of sexual harrassment of the creepiest kind and he's never been held accountable. He goes on these rants for only one reason: Rupert Murdoch pays him lots of money to do so. One poster noticed the pattern and connected the dots. Bravo. The sooner more of us do the same, the sooner FOX "news" stops offering up half-digested sludge and calling it "fair and balanced."

The apple or the acorn does not fall far from the tree. Now let's just hope they never have a "come to Jesus" moment where one of them will decide God wants her to be president years hence.