Dubya Swaggert

Well, the Dauphin wasn't quite as entertaining as the man from Ferriday last night--I'd liken his performance as closer to James Robison--but the show went on, and I don't recall any particularly atrocious gaffes of the "Abu Guh--rape" variety, although, interestingly, I heard no mention of that OR he-who-must-not-be-named.

Aside: Krugman and I used almost the same language in describing Osama, yet neither one of us experienced a face melting of the variety seen when the Nazi-evil-guy opened up the Ark in Indiana Jones. I figured, though, that George would step gingerly around this, lest he upset the gods.

Double aside: perhaps Dubya dropped a hoodoo bottle or two into the river. This could explain what Oyster called That Texan Wink.

Speaking of religion: I saw that The Rude Pundit thinks the tragedy in Russia, and the potential tragedy in Florida, are a sign that, if there is a god, said deity has simply had it with Smirk. Any thunder Dubya might have gleaned from his time in the spotlight has been taken away by the carnage.

Anyway, getting back to Bush's speech: all in all, there wasn't a whole lot that I found objectionable, per se, in the oration, although the half-truths and outright lies were as much in evidence as they were during every other Rethuglican address. Freedom and democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan? Um, perhaps in Dubya's dreams. His series of economic proposals and programs sounded nothing so much as an updated version of an old Christmas wish list, properly adjusted to reflect the fact that the boy no longer needs a box full of toys. As even the otherwise abysmal Mark Shields said last night on PBS (I paraphrase), nice stuff, but how are you gonna pay? Freedom, according to Tommy Franks, et al, isn't free, but neither is government. And if the money is all going down the Halliburton/Carlyle/Iraq War drain hole, you can't expect much to be done stateside. One hopes that Kerry--and, if they can be roused from their quaalude like stupor, the press--will take the Dubya to task on that--and about 50 other things I can think of.

I was glad to see Kerry take off the gloves and look to land some head shots, as it were, even as I wonder about the efficacy of bringing up Vietnam when there's so much additional ammunition out there. I'm thinking of "bring 'em on," "Mission Accomplished," "We found the WMD," "Saddam wouldn't allow inspections," the war crimes and abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere--hell, Iraq could and SHOULD be an entire category where Kerry needs to RELENTLESSLY attack Bush on. There were OTHER options than the short-handed invasion pushed by Rummy, and to listen to the likes of Newt Gingrich and others spew forth such simple-minded thinking in between scurrilous attacks on George Soros is particularly grating--even more so when no response is either forthcoming from the Democrats (or perhaps is there, but not reported by the media).

You might notice that I haven't even mentioned Afghanistan, where the equally simple-minded decisions have left Karzai barely holding onto Kabul while warlords battle for what's left of the rubble elsewhere. And, as I saw over at Balta, Bush is crowing about how over ten million voters are now registered--interesting in a country who's eligible electorate tops out just below ten million.

Other Bush lies-- "the economy is improving," the fat-cat, no bid contracts to Halliburton & the Carlyle Group (no wonder Poppy has such a low profile), Ken Lay/Enron, $480 Billion dollar budget deficits, the politicization of intelligence, the assault on civil liberties, the trashing of the environment, the gutting of the already limited federal expenditures related to public education, the lack of funds available for genuine homeland security, the Bush flip-flops on everything from a 9/11 commission to nation building to veterans benefits to releasing his own military records--every last one of these AND more could be ripe picking for a shrewd campaign manager. And Bush begins to fume and sputter at the slightest loss of control, making for some rather ugly imagery.

Hell, at this point, I think Kerry's campaign manager ought to consider Josh Marshall's tactic: call out Bush on how he told his advisors to "get the hell out of here" when they tried to present the August 6th PDB, or talk about how Bush called Ken Lay up to ask him if they needed to gouge a few more dollars out of California utility customers back in 2001. If someone accuses you of lacking evidence, simply say that "it's just politics."

Nah--on second thought, hit him with what we've GOT--on the record, just waiting for someone to run with it...