That's a great point Jon - we really have been through some incredible psychology experiment these past 7 years - except for all the dead, displaced and tortured people that is.

I thought the "Hussein Obama" stuff was bad before - I can't even imagine what they're going to do next.

This is the future, man - you got to live it, or live with it [Firesign Theatre] -

or get out of the way

I guess I don't understand the post? Is this satire?

George W. Bush is going to fuck this up so badly...

George W. Bush?

To fuck it up this badly, he'd need to be a busy motherfucker, and what we know about him is that he likes his downtime.

I think he's had help in these results.

The bubbas. The Dennis Perrins and Chris Hitchenses and John Boltons. The neoliberals. The neoconservatives. The moralists. The academics. The catholic church. The Chamber of Commerce. The MICFiC. The Democrats. The Republicans. The Libertarians. The consolidated media. Etc.

What is Dennis Perrin doing in that list?

I guess I don't understand this life. Is this satire?

Bush is merely one whisper of Hegel's Weltgeist, or world-spirit. If you read his "Phenomenology" (a page-turner, by the way),you wouldn't call Bush a fuck-up any longer. President Scheisskopf, maybe. Terminology is destiny, as Hermann (Goering) used to say, smiling sideways.

This election reminds me of the time I was in this little coffee shop. The coffee shop had five different containers of coffee on the counter labeled Colombian, Java, Blue Mountain, French Roast, and Decaf. As I was waiting to order a cup of coffee the owner came to the counter with a very large pitcher of steaming hot fresh brewed coffee which he proceeded to top up each labeled container with. I was a bit taken aback with the magical ability of this pitcher to hold all these different types of coffee and to actually keep them separated until poured into each different container on the counter. It is just like the three presidential candidates. Each one looks different and has a different label yet they are actually all pretty much the same thing. Considering that all three candidates are quite willing to continue with the occupation of Iraq I would say Bush has had at least a modicum of success. Next stop …Iran.

NO ONE quite like OUR George, and as always, no one quite like OUR Nan. Give her a call @1-202-225-0100.

I don't get that post either.

Are you saying that if Bush had been a competent president then Obama's seeming virtues would no longer make him a likely candidate?

Or that it took Bush's monumental incompetence to overcome our inherent racism and let us recognize the virtues of this particular black man?

Or that Bush should have been able to capitalize on our hatreds following 9/11 and secure uncontested White Republican power for the next hundred years?

You find it amazing that a black politician has a chance at the presidency, because you expected Americans to be more gullible, more lastingly fearful and paranoid?

Personally I think the idea that Barack Obama being elected president is some kind of amazing event simultaneously underestimates and overestimates the American political system. What amazed me at the time was the extraordinary speed with which Bush managed to piss away every drop of the massive worldwide sympathy for the US caused by the atrocity. It took him, what, three months?

Dubya has managed to fuck up so badly that a Democratic victory in November is inevitable, even if the party was suddenly to decide to run a small rock, or lint, or John Kerry again. Not that you'll be able to tell that from reading the papers - "Obama has same lock on White House he's had for last twelve months" isn't the kind of story that sells papers.

That the Democrats have spent this primary season still fretting about "electability" is a demonstration of how whipped tbey are. They're whipped even when they can't lose.

Put another way--"George W. Bush is going to fuck this up so badly that in 2008, the Democratic Party will likely nominate as its candidate for president a black man whose middle name is Hussein and whose father was Muslim. Oh, and he also admits he's used cocaine"--it's not nearly so startling...

Or that Bush should have been able to capitalize on our hatreds following 9/11 and secure uncontested White Republican power for the next hundred years?

You find it amazing that a black politician has a chance at the presidency, because you expected Americans to be more gullible, more lastingly fearful and paranoid?

Yes.

If the choice is between a black man and a republican this November, you can safely put your money on the republican.

Democrats, snatching defeat from the jaws of victory since 2000.

No no no, America's just following the script. In Hollywood shorthand, if a black man is President it most likely means he's noble and upright and will save the country from certain disaster, it's a given!

To a certain extent, you're right and your post is actually hilarious. On the other hand, I have always believed that it really doesn't matter if the candidate is green, yellow or rainbow-colored, as long as he (or she) is willing to suck the proverbial corporate cock. So the change is at most cosmetic and superficial, rather than deep and cataclysmic.

The more things change, the more they remain the same.

Don Quijote - by that logic, we should never nominate a black candidate because they'll always lose to the Republicans. That's EXACTLY how the Democrats have lost to the Republicans every time for the past decade - by conceding the debate before it's even begun. Running away screaming "Don't hit me! Don't hit me!" as soon as you see your opponent is not a viable strategy.

When you live with this madnees everyday, you lose sight of the fact that it's madness. Looking at it in this way helps to remind you: It's madness!

So, some guy would come back from the future and speculate about his own future. How insigtful. Yeah, I'm sure NO ONE would EVER believe that the mainstream media would predict inevitable Democrat victory in a presidental election.

So, some guy would come back from the future and speculate about his own future.

Look, no one knows better than you and me that the people of 2008 are sneaky.

I don't think he's going to get it.

How do you maintain your cheery optimism in the face of the dismal realities you keep us so well informed of?

The group that stole into power and has treated elections and the Constitution the way it has is going to count the votes in the fall and submit to a constitutional succession of power? The crowd whose mantra is "Reagan" has forgotten how to conduct an October surprise?

I would not be surprised to see one or both of these in the news around about October: "Bin Laden Found!" or what Phyllis Bennis described on Democracy Now! waay back in September 2006:

democracynow.org/2006/9/20/un_general_assembly_hears_bush_ahmadinejad

[imagine block quote on]
That would be reflected in the new stories that have come out in the last couple of days in Time magazine and elsewhere, indicating that there have in fact been orders preparing to deploy U.S. Navy warships towards Iran with the goal being not necessarily a direct military strike, but rather a naval blockade of Iranian oil ports, which, of course, constitute an act of war. In that situation, the danger, of course, is that if there was, for example, imagine, a week or so of a U.S. blockade of Iran’s ports, Iran knows, its government and its people know, that that’s an act of war. Most Americans don’t know that a blockade is considered an act of war. And if Iran responded militarily, which unfortunately would be their right under Article 51 of the UN Charter calling for self-defense rights, the Bush administration would very likely call that an unprovoked attack on peaceful U.S. ships and would respond militarily, claiming to be responding in self-defense. That’s, I think, a very serious danger that we face right now. And seeing Bush at the United Nations choosing not to use that rostrum as a podium for escalating threats, direct threats, against Iran, it makes the danger of a unilateral military move right now all the greater.
[imagine block quote off]

I have to disagree, Jonathan -- I clearly remember my first reaction on finding out the plane crash wasn't an accident but a terrorist attack:

"Oh, this can only end badly."

It was obvious from the beginning that no matter what CheneyCo did it was going to be a disaster for all of us. (Note to the trolls -- this is not to imply that Obama's nomination or election is part of CheneyCo's disaster strategy)