I have been watching Scarborough's show much more often lately, and have even come to enjoy the contrast of seeing him right after Olbermann. I am a bit leary of his seeking to put his past support of the president in terms that are more benign than they really were, however:

When he says, "At the same time, I believed then, and I still believe now, that what we did in Iraq was worth trying," I hear: Well, our little forays into setting up governments is worth the lives of all those people, and has an honorable history stretching back to Manila where it cost about 100,000 Filipinos their lives.

When he says: "I suppose the biggest criticism, really, should be leveled at Donald Rumsfeld for trying to win the war on the cheap, like Tom Friedman and others have been saying," I hear: Yet I failed to denounce those who labeled such writers as traitors, and dismissed such criticism as being the usual crap from the liberal media.

When he says: "You want [Bush] asking tough questions of aides who actually disagree with him," I hear: We were tired of poll-driven presidencies and wanted someone who would act decisively, unilaterally if need by, to get the job done.

And when he says: "If you talk to people [in Washington], they'll all tell you basically the same thing, that the president is a man who's not only politically incurious, but is also a leader who does not like dissent, and I think that's very dangerous," I hear: Yes, the president is an idiot, in the way that any person is an idiot who does not heed the advice of experts, wastes others' money, bears responsibility for senseless loss of life, makes enemies of friends seemingly for sport, and insists that others toe his line simply because he has told them to do so.

Now that the cat is out of the bag and conservatives are saying publicly what conservatives have been saying privately, I guess it's finally alright to be critical of the president without having your patriotism and loyalty questioned. I bet that it won't be too long until conservatives begin adapting the old McCarthy era condemnation of being "premature anti-Fascist" into something equally accusatory.

Fine and timely work, Salon -- but I'm not ready to forgive Joe for the shabby way he and his ilk treated President Clinton. They moved heaven and earth to try to destroy a popular and successful president over a trivial private matter. They then forced an upper class twit on us (despite the fact that Al Gore got more votes), and for the next five years labeled as a traitor anyone who dared question Their Way. The result has been their phony "war on terror", and their failed war in Iraq. Sorry, Joe, but with half of the American public still so deliberately misinformed as to think that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 and that WMD were found in Iraq, and with the so-called republicans already busy gearing up for their next war, We the People (or at least, We the Audience) desperately need to see and hear something more pertinent than the frantic squealing of another right-wing rat jumping ship.

In any event, "Bush Is an Idiot?" would be better with the question mark removed.

Not a coincidence that nobody's harshing on you, Tyler. Real leftists, who totally agree with your point about the loss of privacy rights, had little love for Clinton for many reasons -- remember all those Nader voters? Remember Tom Tomorrow's little waffle icon (which preceded Trudeau's)? Clinton was never a creature of the left, to whom he was always a mealy-mouthed corporatist sell-out.

What they didn't get (until far too late) is that merely keeping the burgeoning neocon/Xtianist/corporate cabal at bay was a huge and triumphant accomplishment, and probably the very best that could have been expected. The knives were out for the Clintons from before the inauguration, and the Repukes -- and the media (and the corporations that own both) -- were never gonna let even mild centrism, let alone anything further left, hold sway too long.

I had friends in the 80s who voted for Reagan specifically because they believed that only if things got much worse would the country's voters remember to appreciate that it was the left that created the policies and programs that fostered the huge growth of the economy and specifically the middle class throughout the 20th century. I thought they were nuts; turns out they were just prescient and a bit premature.

It's to our everlasting shame that it took the horrific and manifold failures of the Bushists to get Americans to start looking behind the curtains again. It's also a sad indictment of our culture, and our educational system in particular, that 35-40% of the populaace still buys the insanity and the lies.

Though I appreciated the article, this whole "Is Bush an Idiot" thing just doesn't set well with me. Is he any dumber now than when he was initially elected? I don't think so. Despite what he wants us to believe, this is just a way for guys like Scarborough to jump off a sinking ship. Prior to August, 2006, if a liberal counterpart of Scarborough would have centered a TV show around the topic of Bush being an idiot, Scarborough and his ilk would have labeled that person a bad American.

So if Bush is an idiot, what's that say about the people that, until recently, have been telling us how great he is?

A recent book discusses public and private hypocrisy. Basically, the author argues that public hypocrisy about private matters, i.e., sexual shenanigans, is not only palatable to the public, but almost expected, and, therefore, generally ignored.

Mr. Clinton's private behavior had virtually no effect on the body politic, and things were going swimmingly--in comparison. So it is understandable why Dems might say one thing in Congressional cloakrooms but another on the floor.

Mr. Bush's brush with hypocrisy is public--a totally different matter. It does affect the body politic, and things are definitely not going swimmingly.

Mr. Scarborough's consistent stance for conservatism is laudable, but a little late. What, for instance, could have persuaded him the country would be better off with a failed businessman as its CEO? Other than a tax cut for people who didn't really need it.

There were intimations of leadership problems back in 2000. Remember when there was a sigh of relief when Mr. Cheney was self-appointed as nominee for the Vice Presidency? There were comments about "adults" in the administration. Republicans dropped the ball in 2000, going for a malleable good ol' boy and a tax cut rather than an experienced politician.

Welcome to my reality, Joe.