More Facts to Shut Up Your Ignorant Uncle Al This Holiday Season

In a recent poll of historians, 61% agreed that George W. Bush was the worst President the United States has ever had. So as you try to enjoy your eggnog at the Christmas family gathering, but a drunk Uncle Al starts yapping about how bad a President Obama is, use your phone to pull up this handy chart, and tell Uncle Al to shut his pie hole. You're welcome.

Dick Cheney’s “Blame Obama” tour

Merriam-Webster defines the word “chutzpah” as, “Having personal confidence or courage that allows someone to do or say things that may seem shocking to others.” It derives from a Hebrew word hutspa meaning “insolence,” “cheek” or “audacity.”

There is no better word in any language to describe former Vice President Dick Cheney. Every time the sneering sack of soulless spin opens his mouth, the words that fall out are so maddeningly insolent, cheeky and audacious, he makes Darth Sidious sound like a Sunday school teacher.

The Tin Man of modern politics is now crisscrossing the country promoting the book he wrote with his daughter Liz, Exceptional: Why the World Needs a Powerful America. In an interview with radio host Hugh Hewitt, Chaney said of the recent Iran deal, “I can't think of a more terrible burden to leave the next president than what Obama is creating here." He added that he thought Obama “was the worst president we’ve ever had.”

Chutzpah, anyone? This truckload of bullshit has me gagging. To have the audacity to call Obama the worst president in this country’s history after having served under the dimwit Bush who, according to actual historians is considered one of the worst American presidents, is unbelievable. The man whose boss was President during the worst terrorist attack this country has ever faced, who handed Obama a $450 billion dollar deficit when he left office (which ballooned to $1.4 trillion the following year), and who arrogantly and illegally started wars in the Middle East that Obama was left to clean up, this man has the audacity to pretend that all of this is Obama’s fault.

With his new book and interviews by the conservative media, Cheney is undertaking the arduous task of rewriting history. He knows Americans have notoriously short memories, and he’s capitalizing on that fact with his “Blame Obama” tour. And no one in politics does this kind of damage control better than Cheney. It’s up to the rest of us to remind Americans that the majority of the problems we face today, from a struggling economy to the eternal war on terror to abuses of the surveillance state, all have their genesis in the Bush era.

Cheney should be writing his autobiography with a crayon from a jail cell at a federal prison and not being showered with attention and accolades from the right wing media. In that arena, Cheney’s chutzpah is not merely indulged, but rewarded. What a world.

I Miss W.

According to a Huff post article:

The Republican National Committee is celebrating former President George W. Bush's birthday this weekend by selling wistful "I Miss W." t-shirts to its supporters.

I miss W, too. I miss his boyish smirk and Texas drawl. I miss his sense of humor. Remember the time when he joked about not finding WMDs in Iraq while American soldiers were dying? That cracked me up. And he kept joking around trying to convince everyone that we would find WMDs when there weren’t any. What a kidder.

Then there was his compassion. He sat for over seven minutes listening to children read in a Florida classroom while America was being attacked. Even though his eyes said “I’m scared shitless,” he said he did it so he wouldn’t frighten the children. He did it for the kids.

He cared so much for America that he didn’t even allow the Constitution to stand in the way of his love of country. To protect us all, he approved of torture, drone attacks, unwarranted surveillance, black sites, renditions (kidnapping), Abu Ghraib, secret military trials, the Patriot Act…good times.

Back to 9/11. Ever the jokester, Bush claimed no one could imagine terrorists flying planes into buildings when only five days before 9/11, the U.S. military was conducting exercises that simulated terrorists hijacking planes in London and blowing them up with bombs over New York City. What a nut!

And I miss his razor sharp ability to surround himself with intellectuals and highly experienced politicians who…well, okay, they didn’t get anything right about anything, but they believed they were right, and that’s what counts for me. I mean, look at Dick Cheney, a man of unbounded compassion and love for his fellow man. Even now, he is so selfless and generous he wants to give Obama credit for all of our stunning successes in Iraq and Afghanistan. The guy’s a saint.

Yes, I miss W, too. George, you were the worst of the worst, and hopefully, they’ll never be another like you.

Dumb and Dumber rate the US Presidents

How can a person stay positive and optimistic after a week like this, and it’s only Wednesday? We started with the outlandish Supreme Court decisions that set women’s rights back 50 years, then there’s this AP article released this morning, indicating that Americans have the political savvy of a garden gnome.

The AP states: “President Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II, according to a plurality of voters in a new poll published Wednesday. The Quinnipiac University survey found 33% of American voters named Obama as the worst while 28% named his predecessor, George W. Bush.”

I’ve wrapped my head in an Ace bandage to try and keep it from exploding. Now I am not a big fan of Obama. The man got into office by hoodwinking liberals and progressives into thinking he was one of us, but clearly he is not. That said, to compare Obama’s performance to George Bush’s is like comparing apples and elephants. It’s like going up to a member of an arena cleaning crew right after a big game and blaming that person for the mess fans left behind.

Obama inherited the war on terror, an out-of-control NSA, the Patriot Act, Homeland Security, Iraq and Afghanistan, GITMO, drones, torture, a crippled economy, bin Laden, a broken healthcare system and an obstructionist Congress. My criticism, and that of many progressives, is that Obama hasn’t done nearly enough to undo these mistakes, but we have to acknowledge that he did not create this mayhem.

George Bush did.

Is the recent push by Cheney and his fellow neocons to rewrite the history of the Iraq war actually working? Perhaps it is. There is little if any disagreement among historians that George Bush was one of the worst presidents this country has ever had, but Obama? Are Americans really that dumb?