perfidy

Buckethead, you may be mendacious, and you may be greedy, but you're no idiot.

A dunderhead, maybe.

Ross... you seem to be in the Bill Hicks groove at the moment. He had an old routine where he said, "abortion has completely divided America. Even my friends, all very intelligent, totally divided on abortion. Some of my friends think these pro-life people are annoying idiots. Other of my friends think these pro-life people are evil fucks. Me, I think they're annoying evil idiot fucks!"

You seem to be ascribing evil fuckery to Conservatives in general, when most of them really are annoying idiots.

That being said, Buckethead, it's perfectly possible for someone BOTH to want what they think is right for America, and still be an evil fuck. How else do you explain Dick Cheney, Richard Nixon, or, for that matter total loonbags like Tim McVeigh?

Actually Buckethead inserted the word "couple" into that sentence, which utterly changes the meaning of it.

What I am getting at here is that I think there is a crunchy center of very bad people running the show in the GOP at the moment. Most Republicans really _believe_ that they're doing the right thing. That means they're not bad people.

The Bushies know otherwise, and that's what makes them malicious, incompetent, or both.

You can't just lump all of Bush's advisors together like that. Their influence levels vary dramatically. But...evidence so far points to being either malicious or incompetent.

You don't seem to want to allow for the incompetence part of that explanation.

So why do I include incompetence or maliciousness? Because there has to be an explanation for the terrible results this adminstration has had so far. I want to believe that competent, honest government can work. If so, when government doesn't work, we need to look to the people running the show.

It's either that or throw up your hands and figure that it doesn't really matter who's running things...they're not fixable. And if that's the case, then why bother keeping Bush at all?

Why do these bad people have the same views as the not-bad people in the Republican party? Why do they give, as reasons for their actions, the same reasons that I and a hundred other conservative commentators give? Are they lying, or do they actually believe the same things that I do? (And would it make a difference? Huh. A perfectly evil person acting the role of a saint would be, what, exactly? Anyway…)

You are claiming that the core of the GOP has some hidden agenda, a secret plan that gives outlet to their eviltry. Meanwhile, the conservatives, Republicans, and liberal hawks are all not bad people because we believe that we are supporting correct policies. But the evildoers are duping us. I don’t buy that, not even a little. I don’t like being painted as a dupe, and I don’t like the implication that I am malicious because I advocate the same policies as them.

Unless you have real proof of evil intent, let it go. You can argue the issues without referring to a milder version of Bush=Hitler in every paragraph. I disagree with Bush on a lot of things, and I have managed to avoid thinking him evil. I disagree with Kerry significantly more, and I have avoided thinking him evil. I suggest that you break yourself of this habit.

As for incompetent, I’ll grant that several of the policies this administration has advanced are boneheaded. Prescription Drugs, Steel Tariffs, blah, blah, blah. But there is a difference between disagreeing with something – “It’s a stupid plan” and saying that policies are implemented poorly, and so on. The Bush administration has gone about pursuing its agenda in a steady, competent manner – with no more than a typical number of fuckups. Screwups are in the nature of things, and no human institution is perfect. You can complain about intelligence fiascos and screwing up the peace, but remember, the administration and our military moved decisively in Afghanistan and Iraq both, and produced two of the most amazing military victories in our history. And like I mentioned in the next post, the economy is improving – which at the very least should shield him from criticism on that front; and I don’t notice that things are dramatically worse than when he took office in any area of life in this country. Unlike, say, the administrations of Nixon, Carter or Wilson.

You act like the country has gone straight to hell and not even bothered with a handbasket. Terrible! Terrible! Step back a minute, and reflect. We went through a recession (which, again, started before he took office) and the most violent attack on American soil, ever. We have fought two campaigns, successfully and humanely, in the larger war on terror. The economy is on the upswing. And nothing else is even moderately worse than it was under Clinton.

This is the work of a cabal of evil? Or are they just a group of politicians who by and large disagree with your ideas on how a country should be run? How is this a failure of government? If you can get enough people together to vote him out of office this year, fine, go for it. They’re not going to put you in a reeducation camp.

And I can so lump Bush's advisors together like that.