First Door on the Left

“We are fighting the terrorists abroad so that we do not have to face them here at home.”

That’s one of George W. Bush’s favorite lines. He said it again today in Ohio. Forget for the moment the fact that he has nothing else upon which to campaign other than his supposed machoism against terrorism and think about that statement.

I just heard Mr. Bush say it on the nightly news and it hit me like a ton of bricks – practically took my breath away.

Who do we think we are that our lives are so much more precious and valuable than the lives of anybody else on this planet?

On September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden (who is still roaming free, by the way) attacked us on our soil. This happened during the watch of George W. Bush, the man to whom we had given the responsibility to keep us safe. We decided to fight back, but not on our soil. We took our fight to foreign soil. We even took it to a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the attack on us. We bombed them, we destroyed their homes and businesses, we killed and maimed their husbands, wives and children.

I don’t know where I’m going with this, other than to say that this is what went through my mind when I heard that spiteful man make that incendiary statement tonight.

It wasn’t pleasant.

via Snopes.com…

The Washington Redskins have proved to be a time-tested election predictor. In the previous 15 elections, if the Washington Redskins have lost their last home game prior to the election, the incumbent party has lost the White House. When they have won, the incumbent has stayed in power.

Go, Packers!

(Now leading 20-7 in the third quarter.)

Update:

It looks like some of you may be getting wet, but I doubt you’ll melt. Take an umbrella! VOTE!

The London Times…

The primary function of democracy is not to elect good leaders, since nobody can predict in advance how a politician will perform. It is to eject leaders who have manifestly failed. The ability to remove leaders who turn out to be corrupt, dangerous, outrageously dishonest or manifestly incompetent is the primary privilege and duty of any democracy. And if any leader in our lifetime deserved to be ejected by voters, regardless of their ideology or political persuasion, it is surely President Bush.

I wish there existed a journalist in the United States with the guts to write that.

Update: Maureen Dowd comes close today. Read her column.