Phuque The Chimp

[filkertom]

This morning, regarding the ruling that he violated the First and Fourth Amendments to the Constitution and the FISA laws, Dear Leader said:

I would say that those who, um, um, herald this decision simply do not understand the nature of the world in which we live.

I could go off on this a gazillion ways from Sunday, but John at AmericaBlog does it as well as it can be done.

Comments

[nimitzbrood.livejournal.com]

I'll be so glad when he and "Darth Cheney" are gone.

Unfortunately they'll probably replaced by something worse. :-(

Sigh. I'd sent it to my Republican brother, but he wouldn't listen.

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Best I can hope to get away with is the Ben Franklin shirt.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

"What do you mean 'we', monkey-boy?"

Signed,

Proud member of the reality-based community

[old-fortissimo.livejournal.com]

We understand the nature of the world very well.

We also understand the Constitution of the United States, the separation of powers, and the barely remaining scintilla of the Fourth Amendment, which puts us at least three up on the current administration.

Have Uncle Dick explain what "scintilla" means.

[batyatoon]

"... um, um, herald"? o.O

WHY does his abuse of language bother me as much as his abuse of the Constitution. WTF, me.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Because he's not merely a criminal, but a demonstrably stupid man who believes he is better than the people he holds in contempt -- i.e., everybody who's not in the Inner Circle or a friend of the family. One of the most condescending people I've ever heard, and with less reason than any.

[giza.livejournal.com]

Haha, I like the North Korea reference!

I am also disgusted that his response is simplly, "you don't understand". I know it's a huge bother for him to actually EXPLAIN his thought process to us. But hey, being the president means you don't have to justify yourself to the people you represent.

[kakita-shisumo.livejournal.com]

Note to AMERICAblog: Bush only got elected once.

[batyatoon]

...fair enough.

Still, I feel like I should get some perspective. The policies he's endorsing and the attitude he's expressing should bother me more than the fact that he's expressing them in a subliterate fashion.

Shouldn't they?

Oh, he got elected twice

[capplor.livejournal.com]

It's only an issue of whether he once got elected by a couple hundred votes out of perhaps 80 million adult registered voters, or by 5 votes out of 9 supreme court justices.

[daundelyon.livejournal.com]

"There are no hereditary Kings in America."
-- U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor, in ordering a halt to President Bush's warrantless surveillance of Americans
Can we have her as our President? Please?

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

We must suspend our liberties!
Why must we suspend our liberties?
To aid the battle against terrorism!
Why must we battle terrorism?
To preserve our liberties!

Ooohhh

[capplor.livejournal.com]

If I dare, I want that for a .sig (without the picture).

Re: Ooohhh

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

Ummm... Okay.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

I don't think he's exceptionally stupid. I think it's just that he's far, far stupider than his job ought to require. He's an utterly average man of mediocre intelligence who was raised on high like Simba in a beam of light to be the scion of a wealthy but otherwise unremarkable family, a puppet to the neoconservative movement, and is as a result a small man, dwarfed by the enormous requirements and pressures of the office of the President.

The Presidency - and governance in general - is not a job for an average man. But a significant portion of our country believes that our leader ought to be an average guy that they can relate to, and in believing so have elected to office an average guy who is completely unequal to the task before him.

And of course, as an unintelligent man in a job requiring a great deal of intelligence, he reacts to the thoughts and opinions of those smarter than him who disagree with him with contempt, scorn, and condescension.

Aravosis is right on the money, though. Compared to the requirements of his job, he's an ignorant fool.

[siliconshaman.livejournal.com]

Okayyy... so now we know that he thinks that the law doesn't apply to him and his cronies.

Right, so, what makes people think he's just going to walk away after he's unelected in 2008?

[theturbonerd.livejournal.com]

Actually, there is pretty strong evidence that he didn't win the 2nd election either, at least not legally.

[gpeefalt.livejournal.com]

That's the little thing that hangs below the "c" in some French words, right?

[realinterrobang.livejournal.com]

Having done his damage, he'll go away? Otherwise, if he ain't done, don't bet on his leaving.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

See, this is why it would be very, very bad to have me as president. My first three acts would be to arrest BushCo for war crimes, order the immediate (within a month, practical matters of physical movement) withdrawal from Iraq including stopping work on our fourteen planned permanent military installations, and apologizing to the entire world for our illegal and immoral invasion of Iraq.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I'd say, from a transatlantic perspective, that he is extremely stupid. But that's democracy for you--even the stupid have an equal right to try to be President, the operative word here being "try." The worrying thing is that he succeeded.

Politics should be a demanding career. At very least it should demand the ability to think clearly, and express one's thoughts equally clearly. Behind all our parliaments stands the Roman Senate, in which brilliant speakers defended their views using all the techniques of rhetoric. (Mind you, there were some less brilliant ones, including the one immortalised by Catullus who cleaned his teeth with urine so that he could distract from the stupidity of what he was saying with his flashing smile. Now why does that seem so familiar?) Articulacy and clarity of expression is kind of important when making and executing laws. Bush has demonstrated time and again that he does not possess these qualities.

But what worries me about him is not his diction, nor his intelligence, nor his disregard for the laws of his country. It's the fact that he wasn't elected, and he's still there. All the rest is just consequences of that primary wrongness.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

There's evidence both ways, but I prefer to believe that the American people aren't stupid enough to re-elect someone who wasn't entitled to win the first time.

[smallship1.livejournal.com]

I'd vote for you. Er, if I was American. To paraphrase the poet Lehrer: "Oh gee it's great! At last we got a President who can really sing and dance..." (I'll let you off the dancing if you prefer.)

I think it'll go one of two ways. Either he'll repeal the anti-FDR act or whatever it was called and they'll rig the election again, or he'll go, the next patsy will step up to the plate and they'll rig the election again. I don't think you'll have another fair election in America under the current system. It's too easy for them to put the fix in.

[kengr]

He *can't* repeal it, as it's an amendment to the US Constitution. It'd take a 60%(?) vote of the Senate followed by a 75% vote of the state legislatures.

He'd also have to get it done *before* the primaries for the 2008 election.

Of course, given his behavior with other issues, he *might* try to claim he can ignore it. But that one would be a *lot* harder to sell to the public. And given the *months* between the nomination and the election, it's virtually certain to go thru the courts. And I don't think even the current Supreme court would go for anything that blatant.

Reality never touches this.

[tesral.livejournal.com]

The man's confidence is unshakable. He is one that knows the truth don't trouble him with the facts. My only question is can we survive to the point at which the American people realize that the emperor has no clothes?

[theturbonerd.livejournal.com]

I prefer not to believe that too. I do however think that voter fraud was rampant in key states well before voting day ever happened.

Rigging elections is an old pasttime. LBJ won his first congressional seat based on some last minute "found" ballot boxes that tipped the election.

Nowadays its about pre-disqualifying voters, engineering long voting lines, messing with absentee ballot counts, and possibly directly tampering with electronic voting machines.

If only it weren't about the American people being stupid...

[hitchkitty.livejournal.com]

Why are you so heavily armed?
Because the government is after us!
Why is the government after you?
Because we're so heavily armed!

[gan-chan.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't put it past him and his cabal to try to "suspend" the 22nd Amendment to "provide continuity of leadership in the War on Terra [sic]."

[kengr]

But to get him on the ballot, they'd have to say that before the *primaries*. and that'd give more than enough time for a lot trouble to build up.

If he tried to overrule the *election*, that'd likely be enough to trigger an active revolt.