you can hear an mp3 of the line here

Oh dear. So Bush Jr is really as dumb as a stump? Oh dear, save all us poor foreigners!

Naw, this isn’t as big a deal as Luis makes it out to be. I mean, I’m voting for Kerry, but any fair reading (or listening) of this gives someone a distinct impression of what Bush was *trying* to get across- that we’re continually thinking about and trying to take action against the people who’re continually thinking about and trying to take action against the USA.

Did it come out all garbled and make it sound like Bush was saying “we’re always thinking about how to harm America”? Sure… but that’s just Bush. His dad was like that too.

And as much as I think Bush is a nitwit, I don’t really see his Bushisms as evidence that he’s *stupid*. It’s just how he talks. I know perfectly intelligent people who sound like complete idiots. Hell, I’d like to think that *I* am a reasonably intelligent guy, and I *know* that I sound like a complete idiot from time to time.

To be fair to Luis, I don’t think he’s really putting it up and saying “Bush means to harm America and here’s the proof”… I think he’s just having some fun.

Then again, I could be wrong.

I’ll say this much, though- the trend in politics to demonize one’s opponent, to say (in Ann Coulter-ish “they’re committing treason!”) that those on the other side are intentionally trying to tear down America… I HATE that trend.

I think Bush is trying to crush unions- but I don’t think he’s doing it to harm America.

I think Bush is f***ing up our fiscal policy- but I don’t think he’s doing it to harm America.

I think Bush has set our foreign policy back decades and harmed our relationships with other nations- but I don’t think he’s doing it to harm America.

I think Bush has established some really screwed-up policies for taxation- but I don’t think he’s doing it to harm America.

I think Bush’s attack on Iraq and unilateral change to the official war-making policy of the United States is incredibly risky, short-sighted, and stupid- but I don’t think he did those things to harm America.

In each case, I think Bush honestly thinks what he’s doing is good for America. He’s wrong, almost completely across the board, but his heart is in the right place.

Now, a large portion of his advisors… they’re doing some of these things for their own purposes. Wolfowitz and his pals led us into Iraq for their own, selfish, short-sighted reasons- but even then, I don’t think they wanted to *harm* America; at worst, I think they convinced themselves that it wouldn’t harm us.

I do think that a lot of them are wrapped up in the quest for gain power for power’s sake, but even THEN I don’t think anyone is doing these things, intentionally, to *harm* America.

And, of course, neither are the liberals and Democrats who want to put their policies into place.

If we could get back to a place where we didn’t assume the “other guys” were doing things to intentionally screw over the nation, we’d be a lot better off.

Unfortunately, even if most of the people believe in their hearts that “the other guys” want what’s best for the nation, WAY too much power is gained through demonizing and attacking the opposition, so it will continue to be seen as a tactic.

Personally, I’m hoping that the Kerry campaign’s far-more-positive emphasis on their own ideas (and relatively few attacks impugning Bush) will pay off, and the thinking amongst political gurus will be that Rovian tactics of demonizing your opponents have gone by the wayside.

Paul

Did anyone really think that I was serious in saying that Bush believed he was looking for ways to “harm our country and our people”? Oh, my. Maybe I’ll have to dial back the sarcasm and satire a bit–but seriously, folks… it was simply a juxtaposition, Bush saying something that he certainly didn’t believe, but which represents so exactly what so many believe he is doing unintentionally, or without due concern for the consequences… it is too delicious to let pass. Like Rush Limbaugh trying to say “I’m full of hope here” and it coming out as “I’m full of hot air.”

Switch your irony filters to the “on” position here, gang.

Luis… as I said, I did say I thought you were doing it to have some fun.

But there ARE significant numbers of people, on both sides, who think it’s honest and truthful when they put up something that really slags on the other guys. There ARE a bunch of people who think that Bush really doesn’t give a rip about America, and there ARE a bunch of people who think that various Democrats just want to harm the nation.

Granted, most of them are on the left-hand side of the IQ bell curve, but dammit- they still get ballots.

Paul

If anyone thinks that Bush’s words are merely innocent words, I strongly recommend they read Mark Crispin Miller’s The Bush Dyslexicon for some detailed insight into the man and his motives. Miller’s main goal, however, is to show how we’ve all become so dependent on TV and its “emphatic emptiness” as he says, to the point where a man of such “sublime and complacent ignorance [can] assume the highest office in the land.”