Logic Times

Why Do They Hate Him So Much?

Posted by Aslan. Comments (4)

If you sat a group of hard-core Democrat operatives in a room together and asked them to build from scratch an “acceptable” Republican, what would they create? First of all, you would have to convince them that such an animal as a Republican was necessary, let alone could be made acceptable. But, for the sake of our analysis, assume these Democrats were in a charitable mood and recognized that while all Republicans are generally distasteful, some are better than others. One might point to their stable of pet Republicans such as McCain, Snowe and Chaffee to prove this point. To really elicit squeals of delight, the name Jim Jeffords could be whispered for effect.

So our Democrats go to work, a large clean chalkboard awaiting their wisdom. Understanding that this political golem needs to nominally retain the label “Republican,” they are compelled to avoid extreme socialist attributes reminiscent of Paul Wellstone or Dennis Kucinich.

At the very foundation of every good Democrat is a large, active government. Their captain writes up on the chalkboard –

LIKES GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS

SPENDS TAX DOLLARS LIKE A DRUNKEN SAILOR

They smile and nod and order up fresh lattes. A debate begins to rage around attitude – our Democrats hate that stiff, arrogant Republican demeanor. “This Republican has to try and get along, dammit!” shouts one operative. Then he smiles, “You know, include us in some of his spending projects from time to time.”

TRIES TO GET ALONG

“Has to have the right idea about the military,” growls a thick union Democrat. “Military is for building roads, hospitals, schools, food distribution and the like.” Their heads all nod in unison and the captain scrawls –

NATION-BUILDING MILITARY

A young, fresh-scrubbed Democrat lawyer raises his hand. “We don’t want him being too smart. We are the smart party. I think our Republican should sound dumb at the very least, sort of like a redneck.”

”How the hell does a redneck get to be President?” snaps the thick one, but the captain writes –

NOT TOO SMART

The captain leans back and stares at the board. “So he likes government programs, likes to spend money with the best of ‘em, tries to be nice to our party, uses the military for social programs and isn’t scary smart enough to ever make we intellectuals look bad.”

“Us intellectuals, not we,” says the young lawyer. “What about AIDS, unions, tariffs, healthcare, schools, things like that?”

“Gotta spend a lot of money on those!” shouts one.

RECORD AIDS SPENDING

INCREASED SIZE AND SCOPE OF FEDERAL UNIONS

USES TARIFFS

EXPANDS HEALTHCARE ENTITLEMENT

RECORD SCHOOL SPENDING

Our group of Democrats has gathered around their captain, back-slapping and guffawing to the loud clack clack of chalk.

Editor’s Observation: At this point, our Republican political golem, customized to please even the most liberal Democrat, bears a striking resemblance to George W. Bush, does he not? Bush spends way too much money and does not have a staunch conservative view of small government. He pursued a “new tone” in Washington from the beginning, reaching out to the likes of Ted Kennedy to expand the federal education budget to record levels. He promoted a tariff and federalized the airport security workers. The military, having completed the traditional tasks of killing people and breaking things, is now putting those things back together, building hospitals, schools and shelters, and serving as vulnerable policemen.

Yet, never in the history of politics have we seen a president more reviled by the left. Conventional wisdom suggests this president should be flexible enough to work with Democrats, and, indeed, such cooperation was the hallmark of his political career in Texas.

Why do they hate him so much?

Two things: Faith in God and Fear of Extinction.

Comments

1: Jack Stafurik

October 15, 2004 10:43am EST

I think this article misses the point. The reason George Bush is despised is not because of his faith in God, but because of his hypocrisy. This hypocrisy is compounded by a very sophisticated media campaign to manipulate the faithful and smear those who oppose him. When faced with moral choices, I try to figure out what would Jesus do. I presume George Bush would do the same. But I find it very hard to imagine Jesus would.

1) Take us to war in Iraq on the basis of lies (There were no weapons of mass destruction, or ties to Al-Qaida). This resulted in the deaths of thousands of innocent Iraqis, as well as at least a thousand US soldiers. It appears this invasion was plotted long before 9/11.

{Aslan: There are several problems with point #1. First, as detailed in my post Where Are the WMD?, it is more logical that the WMD have been moved/concealed. The absence of weapons means one of two things: a) the have been hidden/moved, or b) they were destroyed and Saddam decided to commit suicide. The Duelfer report, which I recommend you read, very clearly lays out Saddam’s commitment to WMD. The answer is that Saddam could not prove he destroyed his WMD because he retained the infrastructure at the very least, and likely some stockpiles, which have surfaced in part at the Syrian/Jordanian border.

Next, why is it you believe Bush lied about weapons rather than the more likely truth that Saddam deceived the international community (the UN, France, Russia, Egypt and the CIA)? If I grant your premise, do you think Bush recruited all these countries, some not so friendly, to go in on his lie? John Kerry and John Edwards also were in on

the lie, too, since they backed up his story! And if Bush lied about the WMD, why didn’t Saddam expose his lie, since he knew the truth? The only way a Bush lie about WMD could work is if Saddam was complicit.

So, where does that leave you? Bush fabricates the lie about WMD with cooperation from Saddam, the UN, France, Russia, Egypt, Kerry and Edwards. We are not sure why they cooperate, particularly Saddam, who will lose everything and be executed. Helluva a co-conspirator! However, there is another problem. Bush is Machiavellian enough and clever enough to fabricate a reason for invading Iraq, but not clever enough to clinch the deal by planting some WMD in the desert. Think, Jack! This is all he had to do, and he would be leading Kerry by 20 points right now! Why go through the trouble of assembling a massive international conspiracy (which still hasn’t cracked yet), coercing the 9/11 commission to support your version of the lie (including recruiting Jamie Gorelick and Richard Ben Veniste, among others), convince the dictator of the country you want to invade to sacrifice his wealth, power, family and life for the lie and FORGET TO PLANT TWO BARRELS OF VX GAS IN THE DESERT!?

Why intelligent people actually believe that Bush is this evil based upon a rickety tower of imaginary “evidence” truly puzzles me. Employing a principle known as Occam’s Razor, one reality very simply satisfies all the facts: WMD existed and have been concealed. This explains why Saddam refused to cooperate. This explains why so many countries had intelligence that they existed. This explains why the Bush-hostile 9/11 commission agreed that the President was acting with integrity. You reject this explanation only because you dislike the man or his politics or his party.

As for the deaths of innocent Iraqis, where were you when Saddam was killing, on average, 114 people a day? I am willing to bet that prior to the war in Iraq, you had small concern about the 40,000 people a year that died because of his reign. And he killed women, children, old men, gassed Kurds and Iranians, filled graves with hundreds of thousands of bodies of the innocent. Outside of Iraqi soldiers killed during the US invasion, it is an unsubstantiated estimate that about 3,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed since hostilities began. Jack, that is about 57,000 less than Saddam would have killed on average during the same period of time. That stat is suspect, because do you know how many of that 3,000+ are women and children? Three hundred twenty-eight. I am betting the majority of those 3,000 killed are soldier "civilians."

As for ties to Al Qaeda, the war in Iraq has little to do with ties to Al Qaeda and everything to do with the Bush Doctrine (see Iraq – Al Qaeda Linkage).

Finally, of course the invasion was planned before 9/11. It was planned in the mid-90s in response to Saddam’s belligerent non-compliance with cease-fire terms.}

2) Show no remorse for the deaths of the innocents his invasion caused. Rather, he strutted triumphantly on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

{Aslan: Again, you make statements without any supporting evidence. How do you know his level of remorse? Read his speech of May 24 or of September 21, and you will see a compassion and commitment to the welfare of the Iraqi people that should astound you. Are you aware that the Allies killed at least 150,000 civilians in the firebombing of Dresden? Are you aware that the US killed over 100,000 civilians in the firebombing of Tokyo? Our compassion in this war is astounding.

As for the aircraft carrier, his actions raised the morale of those men and women. He said thank you. Regardless of the manner of his saying thank you, the left would be critical, and that is sad.}

3) Have his top legal advisors figure out how much prisoners (most of whom are innocent) can be tortured.

{Aslan: Jack, you make this difficult. Please give some evidence that Bush advocated torture.}

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