When you tally up all the lying and the fatally criminal incompetence of the Bush administration's response to hurricane Katrina, and the Right's reflexively sadistic and openly racist contempt for those trapped in the New Orleans hellscape...

...and the myriad lies, fatally criminal incompetence and corruption that marked the Bush administration's botched war in Iraq, and the Right's reflexively sadistic and openly racist contempt for the innocent Iraqis trapped in Bush's debacle (and for brown-skinned people generally, any time, anywhere), and the Right's all-out media war on anyone who opposed the war...

...obviously anyone with a shred of decency should have fled the Republican party, screaming.

But by-and-large, they didn't.  

Because by this time, the base of the party was composed of the same amalgam of bigots and imbeciles and Conservative evangelicals and homophobes and gun nuts who make up the party's base today.  All bound together by Fox News and Hate Radio.

Instead, as we Liberal bloggers documented in real time, the Right rolled out what I dubbed the Bush-Off Machine, and suddenly the base weren't really Republicans after all.  They were "independents", who never really supported Bush...but were somehow still deeply ignorant, very racist,  big fans of  Republican Jesus, and completely aligned with the GOP's contemptible agenda.  

Instead, as we Liberal bloggers documented in real time, the legacy media made a project of bulldozing the entire Bush administration down the Memory Hole as quickly as possible, using every resource in their considerable arsenal to effectively partner with Fox News and enable the Fake Tea Party lie.

It was then that most of us had our worst fears about the GOP definitively confirmed.  Now that the  GOP had gotten away with rewriting the history of the Clinton administration, and were clearly getting away with rewriting the history of the Bush administration, the ignorant, paranoid, racist base of the party had become addicted to never being held accountable for anything.  

For me, the terrible effectiveness of this strategy can be summed up by MSNBC's Nicole Wallace now being able to dismiss that entire era as "myformerbosswhateveryouthinkofhim" whenever the subject of George W. Bush accidentally creeps into the conversation.

From this point onward, GOP base took immunity from consequences as their God-given right, and would not tolerate any candidate who suggested otherwise.  And any glitches in this matrix would be smoothed over by relentless legacy media Both Sidesing.  

And to anyone who had eyes to see, it was clear that the GOP was now speeding down a very dark road that could only lead to authoritarianism and catastrophe.  

From me, September 4, 2005.

* (I will rarely do a modification to an existing post, but this seemed too sadly appropriate not to add.)

This is a graphic-intensive post, and be advised the last few images are rather strong.

Tragically, they are nothing you won't see on your local news, but some people may find them disturbing, and my intention is not to be gratuitous.

I'm simply furious.


("Us and Them", from "Dark Side of the Moon" by Pink Floyd, 1973)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Us



and Them



And after all we're only ordinary men




Me,



and you



God only knows



it's not what we would choose to do



Forward he cried from the rear



and the front rank died



And the General sat, as the lines on the map


moved from side to side



-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Black


and Blue



And who knows which is which and who is who


Up


and Down


And in the end
it's only round and round
and round


Haven't you heard it's a battle of words


the poster bearer cried


Listen son, said the man with the gun


There's room for you inside



Down


and Out



It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about



With,


without,


And who'll deny that's what the fightings all about


Get out of the way, it's a busy day


And I've got things on my mind


And for want of the price...


of tea and a slice


The old man died



Fuck these men, and God damn you if you voted for them.

I don't believe for one minute in a petulant and vengeful Deity that murders people to score debating points. However, if I did actually put my faith in such childish superstitions, I think I would be be much less inclined to blame gays for every single bad thing that happens and pay very close attention to the fact that God is at His most wrathful when foolish men in great nations make monsters into kings.

May God forgive us for letting criminals and madmen run our country.