The Not-Me Belly Sneetches

In an act of political Ouroborosism so meta that it threatened to turn the spacetime continuum inside out, this week George W. Bush decided to take his namesake contraption -- the Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine -- out for a spin.  

Mr. "You're either with us or with the terrorists" said it was wrong to scare people to score political points:

"It is a beautiful country that we have, and yet it is not beautiful when we condemn, call people names, and scare people about immigration," Bush said.

Yes, Mr. "Smoking gun/Mushroom cloud" definitely believes that using fear to panic people into supporting terrible ideas is a bad thing:

 "It is an easy issue to frighten so many electorates, and I am trying to have a different kind of voice."

Also, this second worst president in American history -- whose catastrophic policies and divisive political tactics supercharged the already-berserk Republican base -- is worried that his Republican Party is headed in the wrong direction.  

Asked how he would describe today's Republican Party, Bush then said the GOP has become "isolationist, protectionist, and to a certain extent, nativist."

But the miraculous machine that transforms one's political identity and vaporizes one's inconvenient past can't really be called the Bush-Off Machine anymore, can it?  After all, that machine has already done it's work and done it well, metamorphosing rabid, racist Bush/Cheney supporters into rabid, racist Independent/Constitutional Conservative/Libertarian/Teabaggers who swore they'd never heard of Bush or Cheney.  

And from there it was just a hop and a skip to their final costume change into Trump's rabid, racist goon squad.

However, as I've written about many of times on this weblog and as Blue Gal and I have discussed many times on our Professional Left podcast, the rise of Trump created a desperate need for an upscale version of the same of apparatus.  A miraculous machine that would transform the political identity and vaporize the inconvenient past of a small clique of elite Republican leaders, Conservative influencers and their fellow travelers in the mainstream media.  A political vanishing cabinet for all of those who spent decades making their living pandering to the rabid, racist Republican base and building the Republican Monster Factory that would meet these three specifications:

1. Would allow them to evade any responsibility for the hellbeasts they had created and had run out of their control, while at the same time...
   


2. Would allow then to retain their privileged positions in the media as wise and insightful political insiders despite the fact that they clearly never saw this coming.  While at the same time...
   


3. Would also allow them to go on pretending that the Liberals who had warned them for decades that this day was coming didn't exist at all.

And so, once again, with great respect for the work of the immortal Theodor Seuss Geisel...

The Not-Me-Belly Sneetches

Now, the Right-Belly Sneetches were morally blind,

The Left-Belly Sneetches thought they were out of their mind.

The Right-Bellies were wrong but amazingly loud.

You would think such a thing wouldn’t make them feel proud

But because they were Righties, the Right-Bellies would brag,

“Left-Bellies are nothing but Commies in Drag!”

"They hate our Great Nation," The Right-Bellies said.

They're Marxist flag-haters who want us all dead!

They're leader's a Kenyan with suits that are tan! 

And his wife's even worse!  She has arms like a man!

It's their lack of Right-Bellies that gives them away

They're America-haters! And probably Gay!"

For years this went on, this racist weeping and wailing

(As they memory-holed years of Bush's epic failing).

They stomped and they brayed and were on Fox every night,

Whining how unfair things were for folks who are white.

There was no need to be careful or watch they said

For soon Jeb would lead them, or maybe Marco instead.

But then something happened that made elite's blood run cold.

The mob would not listen.  Would not do as they're told.

They said "no" to Marco and "no" to Jeb too.

They turned down a Kasich and told Carly to shoo.

They wanted the loud one, the bigot, the thug.

His rantings and ravings was their favorite drug.  

The elite watched helpless as their base ran away

As the mob they had made backed Trump all the way.

They wanted a Wall and to settle their grudges

And tax cuts for the rich and lunatic judges.

Nothing really mattered because facts weren't real

And if you don't like it, well fuck you how feel!

This made Righty elites look like ignorant tools

Their smug windbagging sound like the bluster of fools.

They were stripped of their titles and their media gigs

So far out of favor they might as well have been Whigs.

But the worst of it all? The knife to the heart?

Was the god damn Left had been right from the start.

The Right-Belly elite were in a full-blown panic

How could they have failed on a scale so titanic?

For years they'd been paid for being righteous and shrewd, 

For mocking the Left-Bellies as alarmist and rude.

Now their Right-Belly tats made them look shithouse-rat-nuts

Their own words had damned them, no "ands", "ifs" or "buts".

Then out of cold storage rolled their route to salvation

(A device kept on hand for just this occasion.)

Of course the Bush-Off Machine needed an updated name;

Something to deflect this new source of shame.

So with a little light dusting and a lick of new paint

The Trump-Off Machine began turning sinner to saint.

For the elite of the Right now came ouchless redemption,

And their pasts disappeared with barely a mention. 

Erased were the lies they had told in profusion;

Those grandiose fictions that fed wingnut's delusions.

From the Trump-Off Machine they came unsullied and free

Now the wisest of sages!  And with jobs on teevee!

"The Party of Trump is now lost to reason!

They're racist and stupid and really dig treason.

They're freaks and fanatics and chug QAnon sludge

And away from derangement they never will budge."

And if asked, "When did all of this madness begin?"

"Twenty Sixteen," they'll say with a sly little grin.

Before that year all is darkness and gloom.

Who knows who did what, and when, and with whom?

There's no use in pointing any fingers of blame.

All records are lost.  It's a terrible shame.

"The past doesn't matter," the Not-Me-Bellies swear.

"Except when it does," they also declare.

Now the Not-Me-Belly Sneetches are all over town

In print, on teevee and on podcasts renowned.

While Left-Belly Sneetches who were right the whole time

Have been dropped down a hole out of which they can't climb.

And that, fellow Lefties, is the future I fear.

As long as those with the cameras can make the past disappear.

Burn The Lifeboats

It Will (Once Again) Shock You How Much It Never Happened

I'm shamelessly recycling the title of a post I did eight years ago because absolutely nothing has fundamentally changed about the depravity of the GOP or the cowardice and complicity of the media.  

Kinzinger says in 10 yrs he thinks "you're not gonna be able to find a single person that admits to supporting or voting for Donald Trump in this country. Because they're gonna be embarrassed, because their kids are gonna say, 'you actually supported Trump? Are you kidding me?'" pic.twitter.com/sxbgMOv7OV

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 22, 2022

To longtime readers, this assay of the state of the GOP base should sound depressingly familiar.  From me, 16 years ago:

... 

In five years, having voted for Bush will have become the parachute pants of this decade.

It will become the “Oh my GOD. What the fuck was I thinking?” shameful secret people will occasionally and elliptically allude to by piping up with, “well, he did good after 9/11” as schoolchildren are taught what a disaster on every front and by every measure he was, and as adults who now have to pay and pay dearly for the myriad lies and crimes and follies of George W. Bush recount his Top 100 Fuckups and bitterly laugh and laugh and laugh.

The two things I got wrong way back then were the result of the cheery optimism of my younger self: it didn't take anywhere near five years for the GOP and the media to bulldoze the Bush administration down the memory hole, and the erasure and denial was so thoroughgoing that I don't think schoolchildren are taught much of anything about that period. 

On the other hand, some of us adult still laugh bitterly about.

The eradication and revision of recent Republican political history is going to be a little more complicated this time around since, unlike Bush, Trump has no intention of quietly slinking offstage and taking up a new career as a shitty painter.  But you can rest assured that titanic media, financial and political forces are quietly aligning to move Trump far enough out of the limelight so that a newly upgraded Bush-Off Machine can be wheeled out to do its terrible work.  In fact, an early, upscale prototype of the Trump-Off Machine has already been in successful operation since 2016:

...The elite watched helpless as their base ran away

As the mob they had made backed Trump all the way.

They wanted a Wall and to settle their grudges

And tax cuts for the rich and lunatic judges.

Nothing really mattered because facts weren't real

And if you don't like it, well fuck you how feel!

This made Righty elites look like ignorant tools

Their smug windbagging sound like the bluster of fools.

They were stripped of their titles and their media gigs

So far out of favor they might as well have been Whigs.

But the worst of it all? The knife to the heart?

Was the god damn Left had been right from the start.

The Right-Belly elite were in a full-blown panic

How could they have failed on a scale so titanic?

For years they'd been paid for being righteous and shrewd, 

For mocking the Left-Bellies as alarmist and rude.

Now their Right-Belly tats made them look shithouse-rat-nuts

Their own words had damned them, no "ands", "ifs" or "buts".

Then out of cold storage rolled their route to salvation

(A device kept on hand for just this occasion.)

Of course the Bush-Off Machine needed an updated name;

Something to deflect this new source of shame.

So with a little light dusting and a lick of new paint

The Trump-Off Machine began turning sinner to saint.

For the elite of the Right now came ouchless redemption,

And their pasts disappeared with barely a mention. 

Erased were the lies they had told in profusion;

Those grandiose fictions that fed wingnut's delusions.

From the Trump-Off Machine they came unsullied and free

Now the wisest of sages!  And with jobs on teevee!!...

Now all they have to do is scale it up to accommodate the base of the party and all those party "heroes" who happily collaborated with Trump right up until January 6th, who would vote for him again if he were the party's nominee and who really, really want everyone to remember all the "good" things Trump did.  

I'll detail exactly how they'll get away with it in a later post, but the one thing you can count on is that they will get away with it.  

Again.

I Am The Liberal Media

Fundraiser Day One

Now that Dick Armey has quit his job at the doubly-wrongly-named FreedomWorks for an eight-million-dollar wingnut welfare payout, it is helpful to remember what FreedomWorks is -- an engine which instantly and magically transmogrified the legions of lethally stupid Bush Republicans who couldn't even spell d-e-f-i-c-i-t during the Age of Dubya into the legions of lethally stupid freedom luvin' deficit-hawks "independent" Tea Baggers who will swear on a stack of Federalist Papers that they never even heard of George W. Bush.

Of course, in the end the only people who were taken in by this $99.00 political tuck-and-roll job were the lethally credulous legions of our mainstream political media, who once again did our country enormous damage by, once again, letting Republicans off the hook for the evil that they do.  And so, before Mr. Armey and his Teabagger Clown Posse slips back down the Media Memory Hole, it seemed like an excellent time to A) finally start up my postponed October birthday fundraiser

and, B) run one of my personal favorite posts from 2010 (which is also comes in handy, hands-free audio form.)

Enjoy :-)

Now, The Bush-Belly Sneetches

were backers of Bush...

As I learned years ago, in those fevered moments when a welter of polls, counter-polls, rage, speed, heat, transient headline-swallowing micro-issues and barely comprehensible wonkspeak threaten to smother our civic discourse, sometimes is a good and palate-cleansing thing to sidestep those battlefields altogether and try a simpler, clearer genre to make the point.

And so, with great respect for the work of the immortal Theodor Seuss Geisel...

The Tea-Belly Sneetches

(this one's for you, Mom ;-)

Now, the Bush-Belly Sneetches were backers of Bush,

The Plain-Belly Sneetches thought Bush was a Tush.

The Bushs weren’t so big; they were really quite small.

You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.

But because they backed Bush, all the Bush-Bellied Sneetches would brag,

“Plain-Bellies are nothing but Commies in Drag!”

"They hate our Great Nation," The Bush-Bellies said.

They're Marxist white-flaggers who want us all dead!

They hate our Dear Leader! They hate our Great Troops!

They mindlessly hate everything, those Socialist poops!

It's their lack of Bush-Bellies that gives them away

They're America-haters! And probably Gay!"

For years this went on, this faux-patriot shucking

(As they conveniently forgot years of Clinton rat-fucking).

They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes,

About how great Bush was, and how Lefties were Loons.

There was no need to be careful or watch their own words.

They would now win forever, swore the Blossom of Turds.

But the day finally came when Bush began looking crummy

And that was NOT a good day to have Bush on your tummy.

His policies were failing, his economy crashed;

He had left the Great Nation quite thoroughly trashed.

His lies were all melting like snow in a stove

And no one could stop it, not even his Rove.

This made Bush-Belly Sneetches look like ignorant tools

And their Bush-Belly screeching sound like the ranting of fools.

First the Senate fell down, then the House fell down too

(And if that weren't enough to make Bush-Bellies boo-hoo

In two thousand and eight the very worstest blow came

When they lost to a Negro with a strange Muslim name!)

The Bush-Belly Sneetches became very confused.

How could they fail? Had they merely been used?

Fox had told them for years they were righteous and shrewd;

That the Plain-Belly Sneetches were stupid and crude.

Now their Bush-Belly tats made them look shithouse-rat-nuts

Their own words had damned them, no "ands", "ifs" or "buts".

And then out of the West came their own gin-soaked Moses

Who swore all their shame could be turned into roses.

His name was Sylvester "Dick Armey" McBean

Inventor of the Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine.

For the price of their souls and a couple of bucks

The Bush-Bellies could now buy some nips and some tucks.

From the Bush-Off Machine they tumbled like fresh laundered sheets

Screaming about deficits! Taxes! And those awful elites!

They had never liked Bush, no not even a little...

...they shrieked from mouths flecked with Patriot Spittle.

They'd never voted for him, nor swallowed his dirt.

You don't believe me? Just look at my shirt!

"They hate our Great Nation," The Tea-Bellies said.

"These Marxist death-panelists who want us all dead!

They hate our Great Founders! They hate Sarah Palin!

They hate all good things and they're why we're failin'!

It's their lack of Tea-Bellies that gives them away

They're America-haters! And probably Gay!"

They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes,

About how great Beck was, and how Lefties were Loons.

For one thing, of course, had remained just the same

The Left and their schemes were always to blame.

Because there is no need to be careful or watch what you say

When your past is as squashy as modeling clay.

Now, The Bush-Belly Sneetches: UPDATE *

were backers of Bush...

As I learned years ago, in those fevered moments when a welter of polls, counter-polls, rage, speed, heat, transient headline-swallowing micro-issues and barely comprehensible wonkspeak threaten to smother our civic discourse, sometimes it is a good and palate-cleansing thing to sidestep those battlefields altogether and try a simpler, clearer genre to make the point.

And so, with great respect for the work of the immortal Theodor Seuss Geisel...

The Tea-Belly Sneetches
(this one's for you, Mom ;-)

Now, the Bush-Belly Sneetches were backers of Bush,

The Plain-Belly Sneetches thought Bush was a Tush.
The Bushs weren’t so big; they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
But because they backed Bush, all the Bush-Bellied Sneetches would brag,
“Plain-Bellies are nothing but Commies in Drag!”

"They hate our Great Nation," The Bush-Bellies said.

They're Marxist white-flaggers who want us all dead!
They hate our Dear Leader! They hate our Great Troops!
They mindlessly hate everything, those Socialist poops!
It's their lack of Bush-Bellies that gives them away
They're America-haters! And probably Gay!"

For years this went on, this faux-patriot shucking
(As they conveniently forgot years of Clinton rat-fucking).
They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes,
About how great Bush was, and how Lefties were Loons.
There was no need to be careful or watch their own words.
They would now win forever, swore the Blossom of Turds.

But the day finally came when Bush began looking crummy
And that was NOT a good day to have Bush on your tummy.
His policies were failing, his economy crashed;
He had left the Great Nation quite thoroughly trashed.
His lies were all melting like snow in a stove
And no one could stop it, not even his Rove.

This made Bush-Belly Sneetches look like ignorant tools
And their Bush-Belly screeching sound like the ranting of fools.
First the Senate fell down, then the House fell down too
(And if that weren't enough to make Bush-Bellies boo-hoo
In two thousand and eight the very worstest blow came
When they lost to a Negro with a strange Muslim name!)

The Bush-Belly Sneetches became very confused.
How could they fail? Had they merely been used?
Fox had told them for years they were righteous and shrewd;
That the Plain-Belly Sneetches were stupid and crude.
Now their Bush-Belly tats made them look shithouse-rat-nuts
Their own words had damned them, no "ands", "ifs" or "buts".

And then out of the West came their own gin-soaked Moses
Who swore all their shame could be turned into roses.
His name was Sylvester "Dick Armey" McBean

Inventor of the Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine.

For the price of their souls and a couple of bucks

The Bush-Bellies could now buy some nips and some tucks.

From the Bush-Off Machine they tumbled like fresh laundered sheets

Screaming about deficits! Taxes! And those awful elites!
They had never liked Bush, no not even a little...
...they shrieked from mouths flecked with Patriot Spittle.
They'd never voted for him, nor swallowed his dirt.



You don't believe me? Just look at my shirt!

"They hate our Great Nation," The Tea-Bellies said.
"These Marxist death-panelists who want us all dead!

They hate our Great Founders! They hate Sarah Palin!
They hate all good things and they're why we're failin'!
It's their lack of Tea-Bellies that gives them away
They're America-haters! And probably Gay!"

They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes,
About how great Beck was, and how Lefties were Loons.
For one thing, of course, had remained just the same
The Left and their schemes were always to blame.
Because there is no need to be careful or watch what you say

When your past is as squashy as modeling clay.

*UPDATE: Now available in exciting audio.

10 Years After: 2010 -- The Bush-Belly Sneetches

We finish out this 10th blogiversary fundraiser retrospective on the Teabagger Backlash Year of 2010 with what was, by far, the most popular post of that very unhappy year.

Now, The Bush-Belly Sneetches


were backers of Bush...

As I learned years ago, in those fevered moments when a welter of polls, counter-polls, rage, speed, heat, transient headline-swallowing micro-issues and barely comprehensible wonkspeak threaten to smother our civic discourse, sometimes is a good and palate-cleansing thing to sidestep those battlefields altogether and try a simpler, clearer genre to make the point.

And so, with great respect for the work of the immortal Theodor Seuss Geisel...

The Tea-Belly Sneetches
(this one's for you, Mom ;-)

Now, the Bush-Belly Sneetches were backers of Bush,

The Plain-Belly Sneetches thought Bush was a Tush.
The Bushs weren’t so big; they were really quite small.
You would think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
But because they backed Bush, all the Bush-Bellied Sneetches would brag,
“Plain-Bellies are nothing but Commies in Drag!”

"They hate our Great Nation," The Bush-Bellies said.

They're Marxist white-flaggers who want us all dead!
They hate our Dear Leader! They hate our Great Troops!
They mindlessly hate everything, those Socialist poops!
It's their lack of Bush-Bellies that gives them away
They're America-haters! And probably Gay!"

For years this went on, this faux-patriot shucking
(As they conveniently forgot years of Clinton rat-fucking).
They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes,
About how great Bush was, and how Lefties were Loons.
There was no need to be careful or watch their own words.
They would now win forever, swore the Blossom of Turds.

But the day finally came when Bush began looking crummy
And that was NOT a good day to have Bush on your tummy.
His policies were failing, his economy crashed;
He had left the Great Nation quite thoroughly trashed.
His lies were all melting like snow in a stove
And no one could stop it, not even his Rove.

This made Bush-Belly Sneetches look like ignorant tools
And their Bush-Belly screeching sound like the ranting of fools.
First the Senate fell down, then the House fell down too
(And if that weren't enough to make Bush-Bellies boo-hoo
In two thousand and eight the very worstest blow came
When they lost to a Negro with a strange Muslim name!)

The Bush-Belly Sneetches became very confused.
How could they fail? Had they merely been used?
Fox had told them for years they were righteous and shrewd;
That the Plain-Belly Sneetches were stupid and crude.
Now their Bush-Belly tats made them look shithouse-rat-nuts
Their own words had damned them, no "ands", "ifs" or "buts".

And then out of the West came their own gin-soaked Moses
Who swore all their shame could be turned into roses.
His name was Sylvester "Dick Armey" McBean

Inventor of the Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine.

For the price of their souls and a couple of bucks

The Bush-Bellies could now buy some nips and some tucks.

From the Bush-Off Machine they tumbled like fresh laundered sheets

Screaming about deficits! Taxes! And those awful elites!
They had never liked Bush, no not even a little...
...they shrieked from mouths flecked with Patriot Spittle.
They'd never voted for him, nor swallowed his dirt.



You don't believe me? Just look at my shirt!

"They hate our Great Nation," The Tea-Bellies said.
"These Marxist death-panelists who want us all dead!

They hate our Great Founders! They hate Sarah Palin!
They hate all good things and they're why we're failin'!
It's their lack of Tea-Bellies that gives them away
They're America-haters! And probably Gay!"

They marched and they cheered and sang lots of brave tunes,
About how great Beck was, and how Lefties were Loons.
For one thing, of course, had remained just the same
The Left and their schemes were always to blame.
Because there is no need to be careful or watch what you say

When your past is as squashy as modeling clay.

*UPDATE: Now available in exciting audio.

Ben Shapiro Is Undoing All Of The Fake Tea Party's Hard Work

Back in the Year of Our Lord 2006, as the Bush Administration was beginning to collapse under the pulverizing weight of its own criminal incompetence, corruption and hubris, the loud and proud Bush Regime supporters were making great sport of begin mocking us lefties as alarmist idiots and reveling in our Liberal tears.

But because Republicans -- the former Party of Personal Responsibility -- are fundamentally weak and cowardly and incapable of taking personal responsibility for their shitty decisions, as the collapse of the Bush regime accelerated past the point where reality-denial-in-force could keep it at bay any longer, your humble scrivener predicted that Crazy Uncle Liberty would, in very short order, begin denying Bush faster and harder than Peter denied Christ.  From me in 2006:

In five years, having voted for Bush will have become the parachute pants of this decade.

It will become the “Oh my GOD. What the fuck was I thinking?” shameful secret people will occasionally and elliptically allude to by piping up with, “well, he did good after 9/11” as schoolchildren are taught what a disaster on every front and by every measure he was, and as adults who now have to pay and pay dearly for the myriad lies and crimes and follies of George W. Bush recount his Top 100 Fuckups and bitterly laugh and laugh and laugh...

But I was wrong.

It didn't take until 2011 for Bush to be written out of the history books and for his supporters to manufacture a whole new ideological identities as "independents".  By 2009 the Memory Holing of the Age of Bush was already well under way.  From your humble chronicler once again, back in 2009:

...

And based on simple observation, guess who appears to be the largest group of late-blooming independents?

Those fucknozzles who, after giving Dubya the longest tongue bath in modern political history while calling everyone else a traitor, started gagging on the sheer tonnage of bullshit their creepy idolatry of George W. Bush was requiring them to swallow and obediently regurgitate every fucking day, that's who.

Most newly minted “independents” seem to be little more than Republicans who are fleeing the scene of their crime, but at the same time still desperately want believe in the inerrant wisdom of Rush Limbaugh. They are completely incapable of facing the horrifying reality that they have gotten every single major political opinion and decision of their adult lives completely wrong, so instead they double-down on their hatred of women and/or gays and/or brown people and/or Liberals, and blame them for the miserable fuckpit their leaders and their policies have made of their lives and futures.

Like German soldiers after the fall of Berlin, they have stopped running away from the catastrophe they created only long enough to burn their uniforms...

And then, less than a year later, along came Dick Armey with a shit-load of Koch Brothers cash, the backing of Fox News, and his Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine to finish the GOP's political reassignment surgery.  Excerpted from your's truly, in 2010...

...And then out of the West came their own gin-soaked Moses

Who swore all their shame could be turned into roses.

His name was Sylvester "Dick Armey" McBean

Inventor of the Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine.

For the price of their souls and a couple of bucks

The Bush-Bellies could now buy some nips and some tucks.

From the Bush-Off Machine they tumbled like fresh laundered sheets

Screaming about deficits! Taxes! And those awful elites!

They had never liked Bush, no not even a little...

...they shrieked from mouths flecked with Patriot Spittle.

They'd never voted for him, nor swallowed his dirt.

You don't believe me? Just look at my shirt!...

Suddenly the entire Republican base was up and gone. Just like that.  Like a fart in a firestorm.  Magically replaced by newly-minted Tea Baggers and Conservatives and True Conservatives and Constitutional Conservatives and  Constitutional Originalist Conservatives and Conservatarian and Independent True Conservative Christian Conservatarian Originalists.  From me once again, back in 2016:

Or...well (pun intended) they still haven't settled on a name, but whatever they're calling themselves this week, one thing is for damn sure.  Despite being physically and ideologically identical to the millions of Republicans who disappeared overnight, these millions of independent Originalist Constitutional conservative Christian liberty tea party patriots are definitely not Republicans. They have definitely not been loyal Limbaugh listeners and Fox News viewers who had voted Republican in every election their entire adult lives. They definitely did not vote for Dubya twice, nor did they cheer on every fucked up thing he did.

No they were political virgins who emerged fully-formed from the head of Glenn Beck, just in time to go screaming into the streets, demanding to see the black President's birth certificate, insisting that his health care plan was a complex ruse to murder their white grannies, and generally screeching that their country had been stolen from them by an illegitimate Kenyan Usurper.

It was the damnedest, most amazing thing ever, this massive, overnight body swap.  The greatest missing persons case in history, followed immediately by the greatest case of mass virgin-births in history.

Weird that the press never covered it...

All of which is to say that between 2006 and 2010, the political Right and the Beltway media pooled all of their lunch and beer money -- literally billions of dollars and who-knows how many tens of thousands of man-hours -- writing the entire Bush administration out of the history books and exonerating everyone involved in birthing the world the worst presidency in American history.  And more than that -- so much worse than that -- it taught the Republican party that no matter how monstrously they behaved or how much ruin they inflicted on the country, no one in authority was ever going to hold them accountable for anything.  

At best, the Beltway media would uncritically help the Right tout their toxic bullshit.

At worst, the Beltway media would deflect and disperse the GOP's toxic bullshit with its mighty Both Sides Do It Patronus Charm...

And that is how we got Trump.

So comes now a moldy slice of cheese from waaaay in the back of the now-empty Conservative intellectual fridge named Ben Shapiro.  Mr. Shapiro -- a mere wingnut hatchling during the Age of Bush -- who has decided that not only is Donald Trump the hill he wants to die on, but has decided that his best chance of defending that indefensible position is to excavate that which the entire Republican party and the entire Beltway media worked so hard to bury.

The fact that, yes, not very long ago at all, George W. Bush did exist and was indeed the president.

The fact that we on the Left were indeed highly critical of the Bush Administration.

Vice Is Just More Anti-Conservative Vitriol

The same Left that despises President Trump despised George W. Bush long before him.

The fact that the base of the Republican party voted for Bush.  Twice.

What’s driving McKay? The need to live out his anger against Bush. McKay recalls attending the victory party for John Kerry — who, needless to say, did not win. “Everyone you could imagine was there,” McKay describes, including Tom Hanks, Nicole Kidman, and Ferrell. “Once again, we’re like, ‘Oh, they’re going to lose.’ There’s no way you’d reelect these guys after the disaster we just had. I remember Frank Rich was on the phone, and he’s like, ‘It’s over.’ And within two minutes, the entire party had cleared out.”

And the fact that we Liberals see Donald Trump as just the latest and worst manifestation of a Republican party which long ago cheerfully gave itself over to the forces of paranoia, racism, rage and loutish ignorance.

That’s an overused phrase to the point of parody, of course. But why not parody the parodists? Here’s the reality; the same Left that despises President Trump despised George W. Bush long before him. For the most part, the talk about Trump disgracing the office, the talk about Trump’s toxic personality, the talk about Trump’s divisiveness — all of it is just a cover for the fact that those on the cultural left despise those who aren’t on the political left. They see them as idiots and rubes (W.), or as evil manipulators (Cheney). For them, Trump isn’t an outlier — he’s merely the latest iteration of the dastardly conservative movement that launched with Nixon, extended through Reagan, grew to Bush, and now culminates in Trump. At least McKay is honest enough to admit that simple fact. Trump, for the Left, isn’t a departure from conservatism. He’s just another variation on a theme: All conservatives are evil.

Which is why, of course, Trump is the president right now...

Of course, like everything Mr. Shapiro writes, this comes strained through Mr. Shapiro's own preening self-regard and mawkish attempt to rewrite the history of Conservatism as a fairy tale in which Ben Shapiro, Sauron and the Uruk-Hai are the heroes of Freedom and Capitalism and the Fellowship of the Ring are nothing but a bunch of stoopid, Libtard Mordor-hating snowflakes...but he does get the timeline roughly correct.

So, to summarize, Conservative Brain Wizard Ben Shapiro is now urging the Republican party to take some time away from trying to swim against a rising Blue Tide with the boat anchor of Donald John Trump tied around their necks...

...in order to re-litigate the eight year clusterfuck that was the Dubya Administration.

Against Liberal opponents whose superpower is memory. 

Oh baby.

Bring.  'Em.  On. 

Behold, a Tip Jar!

The Bush-Off Machine Never Stops Running

In case you are unfamiliar with the Fabulous, Tea-Baggulous Bush-Off Machine, here's the link.  

In a few weeks, that link will be 14 years old.  

That's five years before Trump oozed down the escalator.

Back then, every single Never Trumper you know was just a bog-standard Republican douchebag, willing to swear on the bones of St. Ronald Reagan that Barack Obama was very likely a Kenyan communist usurper hell-bent on killing your sainted white grandma with something called a "Death Panel", that Democrats were spendthrift wastrels, that the GOP  was 100% problem-free and superawesome, and that any dirty hippie who suggested otherwise was a terrorist-loving, Murrica-hating degenerate.

Now, 14 years later, all those recently-former Republican Never Trumpers are very invested in making sure nobody talks about nuthin' that was going on in politics before 2016.

And the Bush-Off Machine?

    It's still going like 60.  Like it just rolled of the showroom floor..

Performing exactly as it was designed perform.

Which is why we...

Burn The Lifeboats

Dyspeptic Old Fuck Steals Keys To The Bush-Off Machine

From the Bush-Off Machine they tumbled like fresh laundered sheets

Screaming about deficits! Taxes! And those awful elites!

They had never liked Bush, no not even a little...

...they shrieked from mouths flecked with Patriot Spittle.

They'd never voted for him, nor swallowed his dirt.

You don't believe me? Just look at my shirt!...

It has come to this because it was always going to come to this.  From Newsweek:

FOX BUSINESS HOST CALLS FORMER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH A 'RADICAL' LIBERAL

Fox Business News Host Lou Dobbs called former Republican President George W. Bush a liberal on his show,  Lou Dobbs Tonight, Thursday.

In a segment on free trade, the conservative host, who has interviewed President Donald Trump on numerous occasions, called President Barack Obama a “radical left-winger,” and said that Republican President George W. Bush was “a radical... What would you call him? A liberal himself. He wasn’t a conservative.”

...

Later in the program, Dobbs returned to his point about Bush’s political leanings. He called both Bush and Obama “disasters” and joked with Freeman that he had “blinked when I said that Bush was a liberal, not a conservative!”...

...

Here is a jumpy snip of video showing "radical liberal" George W. Bush speaking at the 2008 Conservative Political Action Committee and doing the most Conservative shit of all -- ignoring his own incontrovertible record of corruption and catastrophe and shifting blame to newspaper editorials, "international organizations", Code Pink and Move On, while the Conservative meatheads in the audience applaud wildly.

He has over 3,000 years of experience on teevee shouting at Mexican clouds, but Loud Obbs still does not understand how time, history or video tape works.

Sad!

PS. I'm pulling this comment from Professor Chaos up to the main body of the post because it is so on-point:

This is what I think of every time some Resistance tweeter says the history will remember the sins of Trump or that the GOP will never live Trump down. They have zero qualms about rewriting history to serve their narrative. 

Behold, a Tip Jar!