It's only a small fillip on the vast rococo monument to incompetence, anti-science, and lies that the Republican party has erected over our country, but I take it personally.

George W. Bush has endorsed Intelligent Design creationism's plan to corrupt education.

In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with a small group of reporters, Bush essentially endorsed efforts by Christian conservatives to give intelligent design equal standing with the theory of evolution in the nation's schools.

It comes from an incredibly badly written article that then goes on and on to parrot the Discovery Institute's talking points. It really isn't just Bush, who is only the Moron-In-Chief, but an abysmally stupid press corps that is responsible for the propagation of this horribly poor idea.

Bush compared the current debate to earlier disputes over "creationism," a related view that adheres more closely to biblical explanations. As governor of Texas, Bush said students should be exposed to both creationism and evolution.

On Monday the president said he favors the same approach for intelligent design "so people can understand what the debate is about."

Here's what the debate is about.

Scientists have established the fact of evolution with thousands of lines of evidence and the work of hundreds of thousands of researchers. This idea is based on material evidence and repeated experiment, extensively documented in the scientific literature.

This evidence flatly contradicts literal religious accounts. Religious conservatives have mounted a long running social and political campaign to get their falsified dogma treated as the truth, despite the absence of any material or logical support for their position.

This debate is not about assessing the evidence, but about getting faith-based bullshit taught as science.

And that is what should be taught: teachers, we need to get in front of our students and expose them to both sides. We need to stand up and plainly state that creationism is a lie and any attempt to incorporate faith and the supernatural into science is as destructive to the enterprise as would be requiring religion to provide concrete, repeatable tests of their beliefs.

That's the only rational version of "equal time" that will work.

Oh, yeah, and we also have to work to make sure that every goddamned Republican in our capitols is out on their ear in the next couple of election cycles. The root of our problem is that the know-nothings and lunatics are in power, and are trying to wreck anything that does not pander to their ideology—and science opposes the Republican agenda.

Anyone else want to jump on the bandwagon here? I'll keep a list of the weblogs that speak out against George W. Bush's boneheaded move—just send me a link trackback to this post (the response has been a little bit overwhelming—there are 157 links down there, from liberals and conservatives, all complaining about Bush's stupid statements).