Posted on 05/16/2007 3:05:17 AM PDT by Kaslin
Most fair-minded readers will no doubt take me at my word when I say that a majority of Democrats in this country are out of their gourds.
But, on the off chance that a few cynics won't take my word for it, I offer you data. Rasmussen Reports, the public opinion outfit, recently asked voters whether President Bush knew about the 9/11 attacks beforehand. The findings? Well, here's how the research firm put it: "Democrats in America are evenly divided on the question of whether George W. Bush knew about the 9/11 terrorist attacks in advance. Thirty-five percent of Democrats believe he did know, 39 percent say he did not know and 26 percent are not sure."
So, one in three Democrats believe that Bush was in on it somehow, and a majority of Democrats either believe that Bush knew about the attacks in advance or can't quite make up their minds.
There are only three ways to respond to this finding: It's absolutely true, in which case the paranoid style of American liberalism has reached a fevered crescendo. Or, option B, it's not true and we can stop paying attention to these kinds of polls. Or there's option C - it's a little of both.
My vote is for C. But before we get there, we should work through the ramifications of A and B.
We don't know what kind of motive respondents had in mind for Bush, but the most common version has Bush craftily enabling a terror attack as a way to whip up support for his foreign policy without too many questions.
The problem with rebutting this sort of allegation is that there are too many reasons why it's so stupid. It's like trying to explain to a 4-year-old why Superman isn't real. You can spend all day talking about how kryptonite just wouldn't work that way. Or you can just say, "It's make-believe."
Similarly, why try to explain that it's implausible that Bush was evil enough to let this happen - and clever enough to get away with it - yet incapable either morally or intellectually of doing it again? After all, if he's such a villainous super-genius to have paved the way for 9/11 without getting caught, why stop there? Democrats constantly insinuate that Bush plays politics with terror warnings on the assumption that the higher the terror level, the more support Bush has. Well, a couple of more 9/11s and Dick Cheney will finally be able to get that shiny Bill of Rights shredder he always wanted.
And, if Bush - whom Democrats insist is a moron - is clever enough to green-light one 9/11, why is Iraq such a blunder? Surely a James Bond villain like Bush would just plant some WMD?
Similarly, why try to explain that it's implausible that Bush was evil enough to let this happen - and clever enough to get away with it - yet incapable either morally or intellectually of doing it again? After all, if he's such a villainous super-genius to have paved the way for 9/11 without getting caught, why stop there? Democrats constantly insinuate that Bush plays politics with terror warnings on the assumption that the higher the terror level, the more support Bush has. Well, a couple of more 9/11s and Dick Cheney will finally be able to get that shiny Bill of Rights shredder he always wanted.
And, if Bush - whom Democrats insist is a moron - is clever enough to green-light one 9/11, why is Iraq such a blunder? Surely a James Bond villain like Bush would just plant some WMD?
No, the right response to the Rosie O'Donnell wing of the Democratic Party is, "It's just make-believe." But if they really believe it, then liberals must stop calling themselves the "reality-based" party and stop objecting to the suggestion that they have a problem with being called anti-American. Because when 61 percent of Democrats polled consider it plausible or certain that the U.S. government would let this happen, well, "blame America first" doesn't really begin to cover it, does it?
So then there's option B - the poll is just wrong. This is quite plausible. Indeed, the poll is surely partly wrong. Many Democrats are probably just saying that Bush is incompetent or that he failed to connect the dots or that they're just answering the question in a fit of pique. I'm game for option B. But if we're going to throw this poll away, liberals need to offer the same benefit of the doubt when it comes to data that are more convenient for them. For example, liberals have been dining out on polls showing that Fox News viewers, or Republicans generally, are more likely to believe that Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11. Now, however flimsy, tendentious, equivocal or sparse you may think the evidence that Hussein had a hand in 9/11 may be, it's ironclad compared with the nugatory proof that Bush somehow permitted or condoned those attacks.
And then there's option C, which is most assuredly the reality. The poll is partly wrong or misleading, but it's also partly right and accurate. So maybe it's not one in three Democrats suffering from paranoid delusions. Maybe it's only one in five, or one in 10. In other words, the problem isn't as profound as the poll makes it sound. But that doesn't mean the Democratic Party doesn't have a serious problem.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-at-large of National Review Online.
I stopped reading right there. The author lost me with the assertion that Superman isn't real.
Let us count the ways...Howard Dean, Nancy Pelosi, Al Gore, Al Sharpton, Dan Rather...
You got that right!
Just troll DU for about 10-15 seconds....(remember to shower afterwards and disinfect anything and everything that had contact with it, including the computer....)
I know, I did yesterday to see what the lunatics wee posting about the death of Referend Fallwell. 99% of the posts were full of glee, of the referend's passing. "they have no shame
Nothing succeeds like success. They took over congress with the help of the MSM and constant lies. Now they see the WH within their grasp. Causing the deaths of American/coalition soldiers by colluding/supporting the enemy is small potatoes to achieving complete power. Once that happens, they’ll rewrite history and, naturally, everything bad will be Bush and the republicans’ fault. Very slick. Ninth rung in you know where reserved for dems.
I think the more important question is "How crazy are those Americans, who aren't Dems, that would vote them into power?"
Hershey........You got that exactly right. I can’t believe Americans can’t see through these people and their agenda.
Ok, I'm taking off my tinfoil hat now.
Rats are impervious to logic.
It’s much like a 1940s movie with a leaky lifeboat filled with survivors and in the boat is the hysterical boatswain screaming we’re all gonna die. About all you can do is slap the guy, hoping to shut him up so his panic doesn’t infect the others. But, regardless, he should be the first thrown over the side when the sharks come looking for snacks.
NOT highly unlikely...no tin foil hat needed. I'd say the Dems probably knew there was a huge powder ked...no in fact they did know and let things unfold as they did.No need to convince me on how low these scumbags are.
They have no shame?
Of course not.
How can anyone make a turd blush?
If they made that movie now, they'd throw the guy over and calmly allow the surviving German captain lead them all to the "rescue" of an awaiting U-Boat where they'd find the safety of prison for the rest of the war...
I know you were being funny, but seriously I liked that idea, it explains why I have so much trouble answering some critics on our local blogs. They paint an image that is such fantasy that it’s almost impossible to come up with facts to “refute” it.
Thank you, Turb. Been preaching that a lot myself. But they’re still in proud denial - insisting that they’d rather have a bloody nose than bloody shorts apparently obilvious to the fact that what’s at stake is a bloody throat ... for all of us.
All part of the plan of victimhood: keeping their foot on the throats of the intellectually challenged, logically challenged, historically challenged, physically challenged, nationality challenged, morally challenged, etc., etc.
With each “challenged” collective you elevate individuals to be the “voice of the victim”, then build your collectivist empire with coalitions of collectivists.
Of course given the state of their own minds it is entirely plausible the Reid and Pelosi believe the rumors. At any rate the Dem party is not only a party of fullbore socialist tyrant wannabes, it is also now the party of screwball nutjobs many of whom belong in padded rooms.
Sounds a bit familiar!
Revelation 111. I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, "Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, and count the worshipers there.
2. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. They will trample on the holy city for 42 months.
3. And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, clothed in sackcloth."
4. These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth.
5. If anyone tries to harm them, fire comes from their mouths and devours their enemies. This is how anyone who wants to harm them must die.
6. These men have power to shut up the sky so that it will not rain during the time they are prophesying; and they have power to turn the waters into blood and to strike the earth with every kind of plague as often as they want.
7. Now when they have finished their testimony, the beast that comes up from the Abyss will attack them, and overpower and kill them.
8. Their bodies will lie in the street of the great city, which is figuratively called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified.
9. For three and a half days men from every people, tribe, language and nation will gaze on their bodies and refuse them burial.
10. The inhabitants of the earth will gloat over them and will celebrate by sending each other gifts, because these two prophets had tormented those who live on the earth.
11. But after the three and a half days a breath of life from God entered them, and they stood on their feet, and terror struck those who saw them.
I'm not sure so many Americans voted them in.... as I am sure they "stole" several seats.
Do you have a link to this “DU”?
He also has a secret lever in the Oval Office which ratchets gas prices up and down to suit his whims.
Right. And nothing exceeds like excess, which is the precipice upon which the national Democrats rest right now. They are almost falling over one another to see who can come up with the craziest, most paranoid, wild-eyed exhortations about "BushCo"'s plans to destroy the Constitution while practically praying out loud for the defeat of our forces in Iraq.
I, for one, believe the poll that Goldberg cites because it represents what many Democrats in their current fever have come to believe. I also believe that a fair number of them would sober up if given access to intellectual refreshments other than the Kool-Aid that the Drive-by Media and their DNC pals ladle daily out of the collectiv(ist) punch bowl, or if they were slapped hard and long enough - either by hand or by undeniable realities of domestic danger.
I'm for whatever works, because the long-term consequence of this Democrat disconnect with reality will be social unrest on a scale that will make the '60s look like a tea and crumpets brunch after Sunday School.
If you haven't had a tetanus booster shot recently, you may wish to reconsider. You've been warned.
I just read some of the posts on Fallwells death. Pass the tetanus jab.
I stopped reading right there. The author lost me with the assertion that Superman isn’t real.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Believe it or not, I saw a black man just this morning wearing a muscle shirt with a tattoo of the Superman logo with the S on his shoulder and the words “Man of Steel” below it on his arm. What kind of nutcase would wear that tattoo?
Certifiable.
Actually, they are worse. The language is revolting, the sheer hatred exhibited by some of the posters shows, to my mind, evidence of serious psychological problems. It is never a good sign when people are rejoicing in the death of another Human Being.
In all fairness, I’ve seen some extremely intolerant and bigoted remarks by a few people on these boards, but far, far more on DU. Odd how liberals are the most illiberal when it come to these matters.
Democrats are idiots.Plain and simple.
Ignorant fools will fall for anything.
The question asked by Rasmussen was:
“Did Bush Know About the 9/11 Attacks in Advance?”
If this question is interpreted as “did Bush have specific knowledge about who would do what when and where?” then a reasonable response would be “No.”
If the question is interpreted as “did Bush have actionable information that a person known to have attacked US interests in the past intended to use planes in some kind of an attack on the US homeland?” then a reasonable response would be “Yes.” It may be that the 35% of Democrats, 18% of independents and ~12% (apparently) of Republicans who answered “yes” saw the question that way.
Since a “no” would seem to absolve Bush, it is understandable that Democrats and independents would be less likely than Republicans to give this answer.
Just seems to show the limitations of the poll format. Rather a poor foundation on which to build your igno-rant.
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