Mean-spirited, lying druggies haunt the airwaves

Minister of Propaganda Watch

So it turns out that Rush Limbaugh is a drug addict and a hypocrite. Not too much of a surprise. No doubt his legions of fans, who have detached themselves from reality already, won't have any cognitive dissonance about continuing to hang from his every lie anyway, despite his having called for throwing the book, hard, at every other junkie out there. But, he is "Rush", which means I guess that he doesn't even get arrested for possessing amounts of drugs which would get anyone else in Florida years in jail, no questions asked. That's our impartial justice system at work for you.

Conservatives reply to this situation by going on and on about how liberals should be compassionate to Rush, because he is addicted and liberals argue for compassion and treatment for addicts. Unfortunately Rush is kind of a special case. Not only did he never himself spare a moment of compassion for any other human being, nor encourage others to do so, but he is also responsible for one of the most evil streams of lies and propaganda ever perpetrated this side of Goebbels.

This little essay, "If Bill Clinton were an addict, here's how Rush might spin it" captures the Limbaugh mindset and illustrates why progressives might hold back their "compassion" from Limbaugh a bit.

Newsweek graced us a bit later with a "Poor Rush" story about what an embittered, lonely, loser of a person he is. Poor fella. Maybe he should try to take those feelings and use them to better mankind, instead of screwing people over. Or maybe he is lonely and embittered precisely because he knows that he is not helping anyone with his rhetoric. An excellent rebuttal was published by Quiddity in response. The response includes a link to the original article.

Digby wrote his own interesting take on why there is no sympathy for Rush. Here's an excerpt:

He has never shown one ounce of sympathy for the misfortunes of anyone, always chalking up whatever problems people have with weakness of character or laziness or the liberal culture of decadence. I doubt if he has ever in his life thought, "there but for the grace of God go I," always assuming that his success is attributable to his moral superiority, which also protects him from the vagaries that beset those whom he considered lesser beings.

Well, Rush, enjoy what is sure to be a failed rehab. (Rehab rarely works for people who are forced into it). You've earned it.

Lying Liars Watch

Jay Bookman, who was one of the first journalists to write an honest contemporary description of the Project for a New American Century and all of the ills it has brought us, has written a piece on Snarl Cheney and how he continues to lie and lie and lie and lie about Iraq. This most recent article, modestly titled "Lies about Iraq Rise to Level of the Absurd", reveals the heart of Cheney's disingenuous logic, where he says that if we would have accepted UN restrictions on us in Iraq, it would mean that any country would have the ability to veto the US from defending itself. Bookman's response is:

With that statement, Cheney abandons deception and traipses merrily into the Land of the Completely Absurd. Nobody -- not the Democrats, not the United Nations, not even the French -- makes the argument that he describes. It would be insane to do so.

Cheney invents that argument to support his larger point: After Sept. 11, the Bush administration at least did something, while its less-than-manly critics would have done nothing.

And that is the ultimate falsehood.

The true policy choice is between actions that make things better for the United States and actions that make things worse. If we were to assess the invasion of Iraq on those grounds, the outcome would be something like this:

Saddam had no WMD, no nuclear program and no ties to al-Qaida. So invading Iraq did little or nothing to improve our security. It did, however, come at a cost that may take decades to fully tally.

While we are on the topic of Cheney and his little problem with the truth, here is an article from the Boston Globe on how Snarl keeps creating messes with his mouth that others have to clean up. "Cheney on Iraq puts White House to work on unmuddling message" reveals that

In a television interview last month, Cheney discussed a link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as though it were a live possibility, not something that had long ago been determined to lack credibility. That prompted an unusual rebuttal from Bush, who declared that there was no evidence of a link between Hussein and Sept. 11.

The fact that the correction came from Bush, not Cheney, raised questions no one wanted to answer. After all, the government has a monopoly on overseas intelligence, and the public rightly assumes that reports of threats to the United States represent the best possible assessments by teams of professionals. Is Cheney refusing to accept the president's judgment? Does Cheney know something Bush doesn't? And who's really in charge here?

Then, on Friday, Cheney again repeated an assertion that others in the administration have steered away from. Hussein, Cheney told the Heritage Foundation, "had an established relationship with Al Qaeda, providing training to Al Qaeda members in . . . poisons, gases, and making conventional bombs."

The question of whether Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda remains of importance to those here and particularly overseas deciding whether to support the unfinished war. In stating it so baldly, as a fact, Cheney is committing the government's credibility to his assertion.

Toons Watch

Many thanks to George for this link to Mark Fiore animations. They are good for many laughs.

Conservative Idiots Watch

Another good week.