This was covered yesterday by georgia10 and others, but I'm going to bring it up again because is just so terribly stupid, and in a wide and kaleidoscopic variety of ways.

It's not even the kind of stupid that we all secretly wish upon Republican politicians, just to make our own liberal advocacy easier, it's the kind of stupid that's sad and creepy and alarming to watch, a kind of stupid that reeks of something deeply wrong with the person that says it. It's the kind of stupid that can only show up in a desperate man who has, at heart, nothing resembling what you or I or the average household dog might consider "values:"

MANCHESTER, N.H. Rudy Giuliani said if a Democrat is elected president in 2008, America will be at risk for another terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11, 2001. But if a Republican is elected, he said, especially if it is him, terrorist attacks can be anticipated and stopped. "If any Republican is elected president -- and I think obviously I would be the best at this -- we will remain on offense and will anticipate what [the terrorists] will do and try to stop them before they do it," Giuliani said.

Yes. If a Republican is elected, they can "anticipate" terrorist attacks. You know, perhaps because staff members with their "hair on fire" are warning them of the high risk of terrorist attacks. Perhaps because staff members are trying to educate them in vain about a recent ongoing history of terrorist attacks. Perhaps because somebody practically staples a memo to the Republican President's forehead dramatically entitled, in a large and bolded font, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S." MAYBE SOMETHING LIKE THAT.

Yes, the recent history of Republican "anticipation" of terrorist attacks is certainly something I'd be pinning my ass to, if I were a Republican running for President.



I was pondering over this last night, as a matter of fact, so let's think about this for a minute. Under six years of President Bush, there have been major terrorist attacks on two American cities, public-safety-threatening electricity blackouts artificially created by major energy corporations in an effort to extort the recipients of that electricity, deficits that have reached crisis proportions, criminal indictments of Republican congressmen nationwide and even of Republican White House staffers, one of Americas "crown jewel" cities was in large part destroyed and its population turned into refugees battling a national government response that ranged from incompetent to absent, the defacto suspensions of habeas and other Constitutional rights, the international diplomatic isolation of America, and there have been two major wars, both ongoing.

So a Democratic administration could, in theory, see major terrorist attacks on two American cities, electrical blackouts and corporate criminal extortion of our electrical grids, further massive deficits, criminal indictments of Democratic congressmen nationwide and of White House staffers, the destruction of another major city, encroachments upon various Constitutional rights, the continued international isolation of the nation, and start one major war...

... and they'd still suck less than Bush.

Good God, what monstrosities this nation has endured in six short years. What a hell of a record to live up to. It speaks to a certain constitutional (small-c) fortitude, I suppose, that every national Republican politician has not simply boarded themselves up in their offices, ashamed to even be seen. And yet they continue on, arrogantly preening about a party that at this point I wouldn't trust to run power tools, much less a nation.

UPDATE: Keith Olbermann, tonight: