But seriously, it's another Tom Tomorrow Friday. No, seriously, Tom wants us to be SERIOUS -- about Afghanistan

by Ken

Thanks, Tom. Somebody's gotta get, you know, serious about, you know, stuff. And I'm afraid just now it's not me. Most of the things I might want to write about today bring me smack up against the epidemic of ignorance, dishonesty, and hatred that has overtaken the country -- all shaded from the sun, of course, by an umbrella of plutocratic opportunism.

What is there to say when we have Princess Sarah whining to media folk who transcribe her every blithering utterance, joining Dr. Laura in whining about lost First Amendment rights, as if either of them has a clue what's in the First Amendment. Or doody-brained Chuckie "Upchuck" Krauthammer blithering about the "moral myopia" of the "liberal intelligentsia" regarding "Ground Zero" -- this from a creature who knows as much about morality as he does about fact-based reality, which is to say nothing at all. This is a man who debases the notion of human decency every times he slithers into print.

Of course the point is that for slithery creatures like this, Ground Zero isn't an issue, and neither is the First Amendment, it's just a peg to hang more lies on, aimed at further hornswoggling the sad people out there who don't know there being fed nothing but lies, delusions, and general vileness.

I thought Noah made this point splendidly in his post yesterday, "The Real Rainmen" (and Howie did again in his post earlier today, "Roy Blunt Would Like To Change The Subject From Economics to Mosques"). I've written about the Islamic cultural-center issue a couple of times, but realized most of the important stuff was left unsaid, because that's not what this "issue" is about.

I'd just like to call attention to this mammoth paragraph from Noah's post, boldface emphasis added:

Republicans seem to have an almost idiot savant talent for focusing obsessively on certain specific minutia to the exclusion of any other pertinent information that might provide a more complete picture or a clear view of reality. That’s easy to do when you are fighting mightily to see the world only as you want to see it. It’s the key to how they do their messaging so well. If something just doesn’t fit the world as they want it to be, they toss it and throw a fit just like a petulant child would when confronted by a parent or sibling doing something that didn’t fit the child’s plan for the day. This is more than just childish behavior, though, because it is perpetrated by adults who have learned just enough to be able to manipulate those who don’t have the time, inclination, or experience to gain or process enough information that would give them a bigger picture. If you want to see something a certain way, it’s easy as long as you can exclude chunks of reality. You start with a preconceived notion that enables your hate, and you ditch any contradictory evidence. You can even ignore all of the American Muslims that died in the towers as though they didn’t exist or, more likely to Republicans, they didn’t matter. It doesn’t even phase these people that, after 9/11 happened, one of the first things George W. Bush did was urge Americans, even Republican ones, to not blame ALL Muslims for 9/11, reaching out to Imam Rauf for help with communication with the American Islamic community. That’s just an inconvenient truth to be tossed away like so many others. This is not to say that the Bush White House wasn’t guilty of the same thing when they went and leveled Iraq. Remember when the Bush White House used to tell us that they weren’t in the reality-based community; that they would create their reality and tell us what that reality is? Case in point: Iraq is full of WMDs with our names on them. Iraqi mushroom clouds, as Condaliza Rice said. To them, it was “real.” Damn the tons of evidence to the contrary. They were arrogant and delusional enough to actually believe it. How’d that work out?

Sigh.

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