Molly Ivins: 'From the day of our founding'

[Dudley_DUright]

A substantial nit to pick with President Bush's second Inaugural Address and some questions about his theme.

"From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker of heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave."

Oh dear. It took us almost 100 years to get rid of slavery right here in the Land of the Free, it took us another 100 years to get rid of legal discrimination based on race and gender, and how long it will take us to achieve equal opportunity for all in this country no one can say. At least we're working at it. Or we were.

The Bush theme of what someone else christened "evangelical democracy" is rather like the "From the day of our founding ..." passage -- actually, it's more complicated than that. I, too, am happy to proselytize for freedom and democracy, but I don't think we can export it by force and I don't think we can expect the world to accept our noble intentions.

more...

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18429

[Avalux]

1. Jon Stewart said the same thing on the Daily Show -

Did he give Molly permission to steal his material?

[Dudley_DUright]

5. A pretty obvious "nit"

and besides "great minds think alike". ;-)

[yellowcanine]

2. What's a little rewrite of history among Texans, huh, Molly? As usual,

Molly hits the nail on the head.

[ananda]

3. Molly, you're great!

She says it like it is.

Why can't more journalists be like that?

Sue

[lavenderdiva]

4. I love Molly!

:bounce:

[oppositionmember]

6. Another nit to pick:

Does Bush think he fucking invented the notion of "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness." How many U.S. presidents have we had who were *not* in favor of democracy - at least in principle which seems to be George W. Bush's approach as he clearly is not in favor of democracy in practice. I really gagged as pundits oohed and aahed at Bush's bold initiative to ... encourage all people to aspire to democracy.

What a load of shit.

[ixion]

7. kick

duplicate posted...

[flpoljunkie]

8. Molly Ivins: Bush revises history in inaugural address, is delusional

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=18429

<>The Bush theme of what someone else christened "evangelical democracy" is rather like the "From the day of our founding ..." passage -- actually, it's more complicated than that. I, too, am happy to proselytize for freedom and democracy, but I don't think we can export it by force and I don't think we can expect the world to accept our noble intentions.

<>Unfortunately, the rest of the world is skeptical of Bush's benign intent, mostly because he invaded a country that not only hadn't done anything to us, but also was no threat to us. (There is a new line on the right that goes, "But everybody in the whole world was saying Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction." Actually, everybody wasn't. Hans Blix and the U.N. inspectors had been unable to find any, even though we claimed we knew exactly where they were and had pictures of them. Quite a few people were beginning to doubt the existence of WMD, and what "everybody in the world" was saying at the time we went to war was, "Give the inspectors more time." In retrospect, it was quite good advice, wasn't it?)

At other points in the speech, one was left wondering, as one so often is, about Bush's grip on reality. Talking about his "ownership society," he said, "By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal."

He's delusional: He cannot possibly believe his tax cuts are making this country more just and equal -- they are making it more unjust and unequal every day, not to mention getting us ever deeper into debt. One does not provide "freedom from want and fear" by privatizing Social Security. We've been there, we've done this -- we tried unregulated capitalism at the end of the 19th century, and it was awful.

[mattclearing]

9. Awesome. I love this line in particular.

"Nor is democracy necessarily the cure for terrorism. As a British journalist pointed out, if Britain had been following the Bush plan, it would have nuked us years ago for being the largest single source of money for the Irish Republican Army. Reality is so often much more complicated than George W. Bush thinks it is."

[Pegleg Thd]

11. Molly knows the

bastard too well. She tells it like it is!!!

[jean]

10. 'Delusional:' great word that showed up in another good article this week

Framing bush/neo-cons as delusional appeals to me: The word implies instability, craziness...but also (probably way too subtly) that he's deluding the country.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=76&ItemID=7056
End-Timers & Neo-Cons
by Dr Paul Craig Roberts

snip

In the ranks of the new conservatives, however, I see and experience much hate. It comes to me in violently worded, ignorant and irrational emails from self-professed conservatives who literally worship George Bush. Even Christians have fallen into idolatry. There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush.

The Iraqi War is serving as a great catharsis for multiple conservative frustrations: job loss, drugs, crime, homosexuals, pornography, female promiscuity, abortion, restrictions on prayer in public places, Darwinism and attacks on religion. Liberals are the cause. Liberals are against America. Anyone against the war is against America and is a liberal. "You are with us or against us."

This is the mindset of delusion, and delusion permits no facts or analysis. Blind emotion rules. Americans are right and everyone else is wrong. End of the debate.

That, gentle reader, is the full extent of talk radio, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal Editorial page, National Review, the Weekly Standard, and, indeed, of the entire concentrated corporate media where noncontroversy in the interest of advertising revenue rules.

snip

[BlueEyedSon]

12. Kick for the great Molly Ivins! Another must-read column.

[ixion]

13. duplicate post

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=100738

[housewolf]

14. Just think....

What would life have been like if GWB had decided that his calling was to the ministry instead of the presidency???? He could have had a little (or big) church in Midland, Texas (or Austin) and gone about spreading his evangelism where it belongs... in a church.

He' have probably been a pretty popular minister, too... but only those people who wanted to listen to him would have to hear him... the rest of us would have been spared all this outrage...

[RC]

15. Amen, sister.

And over well over a hundred thousand people have either been killed or mutilated because of this war criminal and his fantasies of imposing Freedom on others against their will.

Where is the outrage among the American people? Where is the shame?