#43007: — 10/07  at  08:49 AM
My own shrink (treating my depression and anxiety) has been saying for years that GWB is obviously mentally ill. While he's too professional to claim a solid diagnosis, he points out that bipolar disorder would nicely explain those long "vacations", alternating with grandiosity and massive failures of judgement.

#43033: Kagehi — 10/07  at  01:06 PM
Well tc99mman. To your 'issues':

1. Yep. Some things you can't socialize on anything but a small scale. The problem is that the right thinks you can just toss all of it to some rich people, then hope they do the right thing, without regulation. This might be a slower death than trying to socialize everything, but the consequences tend to get bloody, sort of like the French revolution, the American one, etc. Some sort of middle ground tends to work better, but the right tends to hate discussing the possibility they are wrong, so refuse to accept that something they are doing is making things worse.

2. Right.. Just like the Reagan's 'Trickle Down Economy'? I am a bit confused here. The left are not the ones that keep cutting taxes for the upper class, on the theory that people who have $50 million, but will still buy a lotto ticket in hopes of winning another $200 million, are going to spend any *significant* amount of their money in the economy, instead of hoarding all of it. Buying one million dollar boat *doesn't* make up for 20 million people being paid a dollar less than they need to survive on, 50 people buying them doesn't change that. When the right comes up with workable solutions that don't amount to, "If we have more money, then we can buy ourselves out of the unavoidable collapse that is coming.", then you can complain about what ever problem you seem to think the left has created.

3. This is pure bullshit. Its a straw man. While much of the left have a seeming inability to comrehend 'why' Saddam shouldn't have been left in power, they do have two strong moral stances on the subject that are anything but relative. A. Don't hire an idiot to start a war, and B. Maybe if we hadn't been quite so stupid in our policies in the past, 'most' of the radicals wouldn't exist in the first place. Where their brains short circuit is in realizing that making policy changes that try to treat the Muslim world differently *won't* work is you already have thousands of insane people trying to blow you up. Its like some idiots on the right that convinced themselves that helping convicted serial killers turn to God can 'cure' them of murdering. Then again, this is the logic of much of the right. Every problem, activity, thought or action they think is dangerous can be cured with enough religion. Ironically, the Islamic fundimentalists believe the same thing. We see with them where moral literalism takes you. Right over the edge of sanity into chaos, in which things even the so called 'moral relativist' people like you constantly complain about recognize as horrifying (even if some are stupid enough to claim its somehow justified).

The **real** issue is that some of us want to figure out what is moral, based on logic, reason and what will help civilization progress. The people that fear this call such an idea 'relativism', because they believe, **in spite of centuries of changing in moral values**, that some imaginary fixed set of ideals exist and not subscribing to them is what causes civilizations to collapse. Tell that to the Chrisitians from the middle ages who believed, among other things:

1. Might makes right. The best way to solve an argument of who is telling the truth is to have them fight, the one that wins was telling the truth.

2. Slavery is a wonderful thing.

3. People with different religions should die (odd how radical Islam, which in some ways is a 'purer' form of the Xian religions still follows that...)

4. Some people are ordained by God to lead, and those people can 'never' do wrong.

I could go on, but I won't. Point is that, by the standards of someone less than 500 years ago, even the so called 'right' in this country are moral relativists that reject the imaginary 'literal truth' of those times. While the far left may deserve the attacks, most are just trying to figure out what the truth is, which differs greatly from the far right, who are convinced that they already know it and fall into delusional BS like the clown that denies HIV causes aids, the whole batch of IDiots and a vast range of other 'moral literalists', who are not only blind to reason because of their literalism, but often act in ways that make me sick to my stomach (and which usually completely contradict their supposed high moral standards).

#43105: — 10/07  at  09:47 PM
"For a guy who never worked, probably never read the bible, never learnt nottin' in school and doesn't even bother to read a newspaper he sure has the ear of G-d."

He has also been a substance abuser. Nice track record!

But seriously, if he really blew up toads, he has some psychological issues. Are there references? (Googling 'bush' and 'toad' hits somewhat off the mark, and surprisingly 'president' and 'toad' doesn't do any better. =) )

#43107: — 10/07  at  10:00 PM
tc99mman:
if we Republicans are really so pathetic, do you ever wonder why we keep winning?

When asked why he was voting for GWB, a voter replied, "He's the kind of guy I can have a beer with".

Another voter: "He makes me feel safe".

Fear and intoxication. OK, you win.

#43114: — 10/08  at  02:35 AM
I happened to blog on this one too. The bit which drew my attention though was the way a bunch of other people were scrambling to insist Bush's claims, to hear messages and be on missions from (his) god, shouldn't be taken literally.
(a) Why isn't Bush saying this himself?
(b) Why should their interpretation be considered the correct one? (Do they claim to have messages/missions from Bush?!)
(c) How many people do think it was literal (eg voters)?
(d) Has anyone told Bush his remarks aren't literal or does he still believe he should be taken seriously?

#43121: — 10/08  at  05:44 AM
In answer to SEF, the White House published a press release that Bush never said that God spoke to him. The conversation in question took place in 2003. The person interviewed by the BBC who caused this affair is Dr Nabil Sha'ath, current Palestinian Foreign Minister, former Minister for International Cooperation. He has a Ph.D. from Penn U, a moderate and cultured intellectual, the type of Palestinian the Israelis dream of having as neighbor. The other person present in the conversation was the current Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Ma'azen (it is a nom-de-guerre). He also has a Ph.D. Later, both confirmed that Bush never actually said God was talking to him, but that he has a moral and religious obligation to make peace in this corner of the Middle East. My conclusions are: (1) Bush mistook his audience for fundamentalists used to receive direct orders from God, (2) Kissinger was right: Palestinian leaders never leave a mistake undone.

#43123: Matt McIrvin — 10/08  at  06:47 AM
He says this crap because it's popular with an important segment of his political base. Go around saying that God's directly telling you what to do and there are people who will just eat that up; it's worked for millennia.

Trackback: George Bush: On a Mission from God Tracked on: The Huge Entity (72.9.234.70) at 2005 10 08 07:17:46
Of course God's history of talking to people is well documented no more so than in that most violent catalogue of genocide and hatred for other human beings: The Bible... ....... So let's suppose for a minute that Bush truly believes he was ordere...

#43243: — 10/09  at  02:46 PM
Sheesh! You guys got hoaxed again.

Don't you think it might be important to actually try to understand how your enemy thinks? (I should say, enemies, since you guys don't get Islam any better than you get Christianity.)

Nobody who knows anything about Bush or the religious tradition he lives in would have fallen for that.

There's no doubt he believes he is on a moral mission, but direct instructions on a first-name basis from God are not part of his culture. Bush is not Robertson.

#43456: Joel — 10/11  at  12:12 AM
Dave Harmon: it could be, but there's definitely an element of anti-social personality disorder there. As I said, I don't know many Republican bipolars. Maybe it is because they are in denial about their illness and refusing to take their meds?

Torbjorn: I must admit to an error. He did not blow up toads: he blew up frogs. For this grievous error I shall undoubtably be called upon to reverse all my views on Bush and canonize him. But I doubt I shall: http://www.all-creatures.org/aip/nl-3nov2000-frogs.html