Abe Greenwald Badmouths Dungeons & Dragons

Before reading this, I have to echo greenwald's warning: If you have a beverage, put it down. Here's the transcript excerpt he posts:

SIMON JENKINS: What I think is extraordinary to people abroad, is that those of us who are enthusiasts for America and American liberties cannot see why you needed to do these things. You will never persuade the outside world that you have not restricted liberty in America. You will never persuade them that you have not taken out Muslims as a particular group, and you will never, and you never persuade them that you really needed to do these things.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: What things?

SIMON JENKINS: Because-

WILLIAM KRISTOL: What have we done to Muslims in America? What has happened?

SIMON JENKINS: Arrested them.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: We’ve arrested Muslims in America? [LAUGHTER]

SIMON JENKINS: Incarcerated them without trial.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: We’ve incarcerated-

KARL ROVE: Rounded them up?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: ...Muslims in America without trial?

KARL ROVE: Rounded, rounded them up? Name one?

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Nonsense.

KARL ROVE: Name one instance.

SIMON JENKINS: The, [UNCLEAR] belabor me all day with lists of people who have vanished. Vanished.

KARL ROVE: You know-

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, that-

KARL ROVE: This is on the border of lunacy, with all due respect.

SIMON JENKINS: But you didn’t need to do it, you didn’t need to do it-

KARL ROVE: We didn’t do it!

Excerpt from Greenwald's comments:

Bush-vilification, like all therapeutic mythologies, depends on fantasy for survival. With their vanishing Muslims, torture chambers, and evil corporate overlords, Bush haters are better suited to the Dungeons and Dragons, sci-fi convention circuit than to the political sphere. It’s clear that the delusional expectations placed on Barack Obama by his fans are a necessary counterpart to their own delusional indictments of George W. Bush. That’s why the enthusiasm about Obama is similarly not of a fact-based nature. His acolytes seek in him fake antidotes to fake problems.

Here's the entire transcript, if you really are masochistic.

Bush tried

Lew Rockwell points out that Ron Paul predicted the Fannie/Freddie crash.

Wow, 2003. What a prophet! Ron Paul is usually right on financial issues and that's why I'm glad he's in congress.

But predictably, Mr. Rockwell doesn't mention that the Bush Administration foresaw what was coming an tried to stop it also. In 2003.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

...but was thwarted by Dems such as Barney and Melvin who threw out the timeless and well-beloved canard, "Bush is just twying to huwt to poow people!!"

"These two entities -- Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac -- are not facing any kind of financial crisis," said Representative Barney Frank of Massachusetts, the ranking Democrat on the Financial Services Committee. "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Representative Melvin L. Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, agreed.

"I don't see much other than a shell game going on here, moving something from one agency to another and in the process weakening the bargaining power of poorer families and their ability to get affordable housing," Mr. Watt said.

Huh? What? Oh....

It turns out Bush didn't lie after all. The Anchoress has the full story with all the links, etc.

I hope you know that this isn't going to turn any of your "Bush lied products" into collectors items. There are too many of them.

David Bereit "Live Blogging" the Papal Visit

David Bereit is posting live "play-by-play" podcasts of the Pope's visit to the Whitehouse. It's supposedly the biggest shindig GWB has thrown yet.

Bush, Benedict and Babies

Here's an NCR article written by a friend of mine, Dr. Paul Kengor. Excerpt:

In fact, the big story between this president and this Pope — as it was with this president and the last Pope — has been their remarkable unity on the sanctity and dignity of human life.

Neither man majored in math in college, but they easily understand that 1,000 tragic deaths per year among enlisted soldiers in an American military operation is a smaller number than 1 million deaths per year among innocent babies in American abortion businesses.

Then Dr. Kengor goes on to remind us of the awkwardness of the former President's meeting with John Paul II and that President Bush banned all US funding of international abortion groups on his first day in office. He concludes:

The United States of America is the world’s most influential nation. The Catholic Church is the world’s most influential church. Abortion is the world’s most destructive force, and one that must be stopped, not encouraged — the leader of America and the Catholic Church, mercifully, agree on that.

Update: Dr. Kengor is currently on Michael Medved's show. Check it out.