At this point, the only thing to really get exercised about when our Dear Leader gives another one of his speeches full of lies, distortions, and fantasies, is the level of contempt in which all our leaders--and particularly Bush--must hold us.

The lying and propagandizing is so obvious, so crude, and so completely self-serving, that a child could be offended by it.

It really bugs me that the assholes who rule think we are so damned stupid. Now, granted, 50% of the voting population IS that stupid, and deserves their contempt. But the other 50%? We really are smart enough to understand the little trip we're on.

It is sad...how low our government has fallen. Funny thing... none of this would bug me so much if these guys were actually *competent.* I can handle profound political disagreements if the other side proves it knows what it's doing.

But these guys have so clearly proven the opposite, in every way that counts...it is truly a marvel how Bush can get up and say this shit anymore. Where's the press, anyway? Calling him on his crap?

"And as we saw on Sept. 11, the status quo in the Middle East led to death and destruction in the United States, and it had to change."

That makes me cringe as much as "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" as a reason for invading Iraq. The smug, out of touch arrogance of it just amazes me. But they hate us because we love freedm.

Who is going to pick up the pieces of the demolished Lebanon, and who is going to pay for the cleanup of the massive oil spill that threatens to contaminate much of the Mediterrenean? (wait til that shit starts washing up in Greece and Italy). You know it won't be Israel.

Its time to lay 9/11 right where it belongs: at the president's feet.

The brilliant singer-comedian Tom Lehrer summed up this approach to spreading "democracy" in his 1966 classic "Send the Marines". The bridge is:

For might makes right,

Until they've seen the light --

They've got to be protected

All their rights respected

'Til someone we like can be elected!

I don't imagine he's especially happy to be as spot-on accurate now as he was four decades ago.

How can you tell what Bush is saying? He doesn't speak in complete sentences. He doesn't articulate intelligent thoughts.

I take second place to no one in my disgust with the United States' actions in the Middle East since Dubya has been in office. But this entry in "WarRoom" suggests that the election by Lebanese voters of Hezbollah representatives to their Parliament somehow makes Israel's attack (and the U.S. accession to it) **worse**.

Let me see if I understand this: a citizenry includes in its elected officials representatives from a group that almost everyone on Earth regards as a terrorist group. This somehow makes that citizenry **less** culpable for actions of that terrorist group?

Actually, I'm not complaining - this means I can stop feeling guilty about Dubya and his neocons (or is it the other way around?) representing the U.S.

Good for the goose ...

In the 1960's a Harvard Math Professor named Tom Lehrer wrote a tune called "Send the Marines" (to the tune of "The Halls of Montezuma"). The tune's lyrics are, in part,

"...they must be protected,

allll their rights respected,

until somebody we like can be elected..."

(in reference to a country who makes a move of which we don't approve)

American actions (as directed by Shrub) make it clear to any idiot that when he says democracy, he means a democracy that is acceptable to the US. Any student of history will be able to tell him what the likelihood of that approach working.

As we've seen for the past few years, this man, "W", gets stupider by the second!!

Almost no one will talk to usthere now, he thinks bowing up the whole of the region will make this better??

PLEASE send me some of that Cool-Aide!!

Um... "a group that almost everyone on Earth regards as a terrorist group."

By "almost everyone on Earth" I take it you mean the governments of Israel, the US and Canada?

The UK, Australia and Netherlands consider Hezbollah's military wing, but NOT its political wing terrorist...

And... That's it...

I found this info on wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah

I suggest you do a little research next time (about 15 seconds would do it) before claiming to speak for "almost everyone on Earth."

I don't know if you can call Lebanon a "functioning democracy" if it couldn't prevent a terrorist group from using its territory to launch attacks against a neighboring sovereign nation. Would the United States government be functioning properly if it couldn't prevent its citizens from firing rockets into Mexico?

Bush and the Republican Party ensured that the "right" democracy was elected in the U.S. in 2000. They did it again in 2004, in a seriously dirty campaign that had Bush riding the Big Oil Swiftboat back into the White House. Now Arlen Specter wants to give the "right" democratic leader even more power.

It's been successful at home -- of course they'll follow the same M.O. abroad.

...I believe his first language is Texan, but I have heard other Tex speakers who are quite understandable and articulate, so it's either a localized dialect or a speech impediment. Or something else I'm not going to speculate on lest "they" come take my computer away ;)

and that is why Bush does what he does. The common person in our country isn't concerned about what is going on in the middle east let alone be able to point to Lebanon or Israel on a map. I look on the amount of knowledge I have read and taken in over the past 3 years and it dwarfs anything that even most of my educated friends know. Sure they see the news (if they even pay attention) but they are more concerned about their own lives and their own little world and don't trouble themselves with things that don't directly affect them. It all goes back to the fact that we have 2 large oceans separating us from the world and the fact that very little impacts our little worlds in which we live.

That is how 50% of the nation votes for someone like Bush. They think simply and in general. Terrorism bad, fight terrorism good. It doesn't matter how it is done as long as it's done. People trust our government, the "experts" and the people in charge. They do this because citizens long for leadership so badly that when Bush stands up on some rubble with a blowhorn and speaks his utterly horrible english, they follow anyway.