Last December I asked a question that seems increasingly pertinent with each new administration scandal: How Far Will Bush Supporters Go? When I asked the question the first time, the NSA story had just broken and I watched in amazement as a number of rightwing bloggers and pundits and politicians lined up behind the White House in support of a clear circumvention of the law.

This time it's the Dubai port deal. Once again, despite cracks in the pro-Bush edifice, several bloggers are embracing their cognitive dissonance and supporting Bush. (link, link.) The fealty is incredible. Here we have a 'leader' on whose watch America suffered the worst terrorist attack in its history saying, 'no need to worry about port security,' and his blog followers do what they do best: follow.

Which raises the issue of Bush cultism, a hot blog topic thanks in part to Glenn Greenwald. I wrote this in response to a blogger who rejects Glenn's premise: 'I am sympathetic to bloggers like Tom Maguire, under whose skin Glenn's post is lodged and stinging. Nobody wants to be seen as an intellectually dishonest sycophant. But that's exactly where many rightwing bloggers find themselves, apologists for a White House that treats the Constitution as a burden rather than a beacon, as a pest rather than a paradigm.'

Speaking of intellectual dishonesty, the ostrich-like response to the ominous turn of events in Iraq is another perfect example of how far blind allegiance to Bush will go. I know it's difficult to admit error, but isn't it about time to fess up that this whole (mis)adventure has been a disaster of epic proportions?

So again I ask, how far will Bush supporters go?"

by Bill in Portland Maine

Tue Feb 21, 2006 at 06:18:42 AM PDT
From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
And now, a brief history of George W. Bush and his Republican Congress's record of 'bipartisanship' over the past 5 years:
Democrats: We should fix the environment.
Republicans: Shut up!
We should make the Medicare prescription drug program better...
Sit down!
Can we at least let the federal government negotiate with drug companies to get lower prices?
Sit on my face and wriggle, assmunch!
Can we discuss the ramifications of the Patriot Act?
Eat our boogers!
Perhaps the deficit is getting a bit high and we should consider...
Considering is for losers!
But certainly we can agree that war-profiteering in Iraq must be stopped...
You know what needs to be stopped? �Your mouth!
Ethics violations?
Sock puppets!
You know global warming is real. �Can we at least discuss the Kyoto...
Kyo-NO!
Perhaps an exit strategy for Iraq?
Perhaps a sandpaper wedgie!?
Poverty?
[Snort!] �Poor people make lousy campaign contributors. �Deeee-nied.
Would you like to see our ideas on job-creation?
Would you like to see our ideas on sticking your head in a toilet?
Real Social Security reform?
Knee to the groin?
Basic equality for gays?
Fairy lovers.
Adequate funding for our VA hospitals?
Tch...they can deal with combat, they can deal with a little prostate cancer.
Making abortion safe, legal and, most important, rare?
Women...can't live with `em, can't imagine a threesome without `em!! �Par-tay!!!!!!!
Safeguards against price-gouging by oil companies?
Let me think about that for a moment...um...No.
But polls show that Americans want...
Here's a pole. �You know where to stick it.
And so it goes. �As palpable as my frustration is with the Democratic leadership, I save my deepest contempt for the Republican leadership and the way they've destroyed any sense of equality, fairness and compassion for Americans. �They lie, they cheat, they steal. �They bamboozle, they spin, they obfuscate. �They deceive, they stonewall, they bully. �They're uncivil, unethical and unresponsive. �It's in their DNA. �All in the name of 'drowning the federal government in the bathtub.'
I'm no think-tank intellectual, nor am I a political scientist. �But I know how to call bullshit. �So, since I haven't done it in awhile: Frist, Hastert, Boehner, Scalia, Thomas, Santorum, Hannity, Bush, Coburn, Bolton, Roberts, Coleman, DeLay, Lott, Card, Stevens, Hughes, McCain, Matalin, Hutchison, Cheney, Hatch, Brownback, Limbaugh, Thune, Rove, DeWine, McClellan, Burns and whoever else you think oughtta be on the list: I say with all the due respect you've shown us: SCREW YOU!"

New York Times: "A couple of weeks ago, I was doing a reading at one of those bookstores on the West Coast where at least five people will hiss like snakes and radiators if an author even mentions the names of certain senior administration officials. And that was back before members of the executive branch actually started shooting their friends.
The question-and-answer period included the usual random lineup of what I call the 'Garry Wills questions.' They're the sort of undignified 'What historical figure would you like to make out with?' queries my way-more-upstanding-nonfiction-colleague Mr. Wills never has to endure. Probably because everyone knows the Socratic author of 'Lincoln at Gettysburg' and 'Why I Am a Catholic' would answer with another question, namely, 'Do you consider Snoop Dogg to be a historical figure?' Then a man raised his hand and asked me to give him a reason to be 'optimistic' about America. Huh. That was a new one. That's how depressing things are in this country right now %u2014 citizens are coming to me for optimism. And I'm the person who came to town to read from a book that ends with me walking across Union Square from the Lincoln statue toward the Gandhi statue and noting, 'They shot him, too.' I was so taken aback by the optimism request I think I mumbled something about seeking solace in art and the land, culminating in a drippy anecdote about my sunrise flight over Mount Hood and Crater Lake while listening to 'Adagio for Strings.' But that question keeps dogging me.My go-to worldview is pessimism. I see a Times Square billboard promoting a musical that has its audience 'dancing in the aisles' and I can't help but think, 'That is a fire hazard.' But it has been my happy experience that if one moves through life in a constant state of low-key dread, then one gets to be continually pleasantly surprised. Like, suppose I was to be asked to write a guest column for a newspaper I find consistently infuriating because, for example, its arts section prints claptrap proclamations like 'No woman really loves Bob Dylan,' thereby making me want to jump in a cab with a boombox and my two copies of 'Blonde on Blonde' and plant myself on 43rd Street, blaring 'Most Likely You Go Your Way and I'll Go Mine' at said newspaper's windows. I would dread such an assignment until I felt the glee of getting paid to carp at said paper within its own pages. See? Pleasant surprise."

"It seemed like the Air Force knew it had a problem with religious intolerance.
A 'Team Jesus Christ' banner was hung by the head football coach in the team locker room. Cadets of various faiths reported conversion attempts and harassment by superiors as well as evangelical prayer at official academy events. And a Lutheran minister confirmed a systemic evangelical bias by administrators, faculty, and upperclassmen.
So a draft of new guidelines on religious expression discouraged sectarian prayer at public gatherings, and warned superiors against proselytizing to subordinates. But Focus on the Family and other evangelical groups would have none of it.
According to the Washington Post, 'They launched a nationwide petition drive, sounded alarms on Christian radio stations, and deluged the White House and Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne's office with e-mails calling the guidelines an infringement of the Constitution's guarantees of free speech and free exercise of religion.'
The result? The Pentagon released a new draft of guidelines emphasizing the freedom of superiors to exercise their faith when it is 'reasonably clear discussions are personal, not official.'
Americans United for Separation of Church and State put it well: The revisions 'focus on protecting the rights of chaplains, while ignoring the rights of nonbelievers and minority faiths.'
The bottom line: the military caved to evangelical pressure and reaffirmed, rather than reformed, the continual eroding of the separation of church and state. One more victory for the right wing, one more slap at the Constitution."