From Dennis Furman of Shalimar: If people are feeling bad because of “acrimony and lack of civil discourse” they should be “apologizing for your mean-spirited attacks during the Bush years … Apologize for the mainstream media who cannot write or report a story without left wing bias …Apologize for Harry Reid for calling President Bush a loser and a liar … Apologize for Van Jones for using a profanity to describe Republican members of Congress …It could go a long way to let some of us know you are sincere in your desire to listen to people who don’t agree with you.”
Ahh, Republicans. So dreadfully concerned about civility and polite behaviour … whenever it serves them politically. I don’t see any sign in there that Republicans should apologize for eight years of calling Democrats traitors. Or Cheney for using the F word (or Justice Scalia for using an Italian expression that means the same thing). Or Rush Limbaugh for saying that he hopes Obama fails, or Glenn Beck for accusing him of being a “Manchurian candidate.”
And while I don’t use “liar” very much myself—I have no idea what was going on Bush’s brain—given the amount of documented false statements he and his administration have spewed out, I’d say “liar” is a fair call. As for loser: Bin Laden is still on the loose, we never caught the anthrax killer, the budget deficit soared into billions on Bush’s watch and he led us into a war that cost tens of thousands of lives in order to destroy a threat that didn’t exist. That adds up to a big world of lose in my book.
As for “mean spirited attacks” and “liberal bias,” in my experience Republicans translate that as anything that criticize their side, especially when it’s pointed out they’re worse than the left. As I’ve pointed out in the past, on the Republican side we had Sen. James Inhofe, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell saying America deserved 9/11; on the left we have obscure college professor Wade Churchill. That’s not an excuse for his statement, but it’s silly to pretend he has the same standing in the Democratic Party that the other three did on the right.
Like I said, more humor.
