Bush to Nutzoid Evangelicals: "I Feel Your Prayer":
The speech was little-noted among the other events of the week: the media swallowed a load of Spitzer, the Clinton campaign got some Ferraro in its vagina, and, if anyone was paying attention to the President, it was for the complete and utter degradation of the office of the presidency as he sang a country song about how he punked us all to teat-sucking reporters at the Gridiron Dinner. But on Tuesday, President Bush gave a speech at the convention of the National Religious Broadcasters (motto: "Fellating Christ's nails for over sixty years"), and...well, let's just let the man speak for his old self:

Pandering to the audience, Bush proclaimed, "Some members of Congress want to reinstate a regulation that was repealed 20 years ago. It has the Orwellian name called the Fairness Doctrine. Supporters of this regulation say we need to mandate that any discussion of so-called controversial issues on the public airwaves includes equal time for all sides." Now, it goes without saying that George W. Bush, of the Clean Skies Initiative, among other splendiferously named programs, calling something "Orwellian" is not unlike Jeffrey Dahmer calling something "gross." Once you've scooped a brain out of a skull using only common kitchen tools, you pretty much lose the right to use the word. This is not to mention that the "fairness" part of the name is not Orwellian at all: asking for equal time is, like, part of the definition of "fair." Orwellian? It's like saying that it's "ironic" that Orwell would scream from his grave over this misuse of his name.

After tossing some raw lefty carcasses to the crowd, Bush skated on their throbbing bloodlust, evoking violence and doom. After raping 9/11 for effect again, Bush went historical: "These murderers were not instruments of a heavenly power; they were instruments of evil. (Applause.) And we have seen their kind before. It's important not to forget the lessons of history. We must remember the extermination of Jews in Nazi death camps were -- was evil. The crimes of Pol Pot were evil. And the genocide in Rwanda was conducted because people's hearts were hardened." You know, 9/11 was bad and shit, sure, like we always have to say, but it wasn't, as far as the Rude Pundit can tell, genocide.

The moral equivalency of the acts of a dozen and a half lucky Saudis with, well, fuck, the Holocaust would be demeaning if it wasn't just so irrational, so bugfuck insane. But Bush is talkin' to history and talkin' to some of the last people on earth who give a happy monkey balling what he has to say. He's gonna fluff each and every one of them like a gay porn set cocksucker with a suitcase full of chapstick and an orgy to get going. Yeah, he's saying, a couple thousand goatfuckers living in caves are just like the Nazis, just like the Khmer Rouge, just like the hard-hearted (what the fuck?) Hutus.

The parade of violence and gore that Bush marched before the slavering Christian broadcasters was truly stunning. It was not unlike listening to Mussolini (who, to be fair, Bush is more akin to than Hitler) whip the dogs of dissent into cowering. In Iraq under Saddam, Bush said, "Women were raped by Iraqi authorities. Citizens were mutilated and dumped into mass graves. And Shia and Sunni and Kurds were oppressed and pitted against one another." As for current violence in Afghanistan, "We saw the nature of this enemy when Taliban extremists invaded an Afghan school. They kidnaped six teachers; they beat the schoolchildren with sticks to scare them away from attending classes. We saw the nature of this enemy when extremists beheaded the principal of an Afghan high school and forced his wife and children to watch. We saw the nature of this enemy last summer when Taliban extremists paid an Afghan boy to push a cart carrying explosives into a crowded marketplace. And the terrorists detonated the cart, killing the boy and Afghan security officials." But don't worry, Bush says, because "Afghan children are flying kites again" (no, really, he said that).

Oh, he bemoans the hating and the blowin' shit up, saying, "This enemy sees no value in human life. And they continue their campaign of bloody and horrific attacks, all attempting to demoralize the people of Afghanistan, and all attempting to wait the coalition out. For the sake of humanity and for the sake of the safety of our people, for the sake of human life and human dignity, and for the sake of the security of the United States of America, we will stop this murderous movement now, before it finds a new path to power." But, really, if it ended, there'd go most of his material.

At the end, he began to bring it all back home: "Our enemies are ruthless, but they're going to be defeated. (Applause.) They've got the capacity to blow people up through suicide -- but you notice none of the leaders ever are the suicide bombers, however. (Laughter.)" See, that's funny because he avoided the Vietnam War. Then, to show he's just an ungrammatical rube like many in attendance, he added, "But we got something more powerful: We got determination, we got will, and we got freedom at our disposal." Apparently, we ain't got the word "have."

The President turned more directly back to the "Religious" part of the organization's name, saying, " I appreciate your prayers. I appreciate your prayers to help comfort millions of people. I appreciate the fact that you pray for our troops and their families. And I appreciate the prayers that you have directed my way. I feel your prayer."

And those in attendance nodded at the prayers heightening or dampening their undergarments, thanking LordGodJesus or some such shit for the ability to pray for such a man.

This is truly what the Presidency of George W. Bush has come to: frantic self-justification before the forces of history blow up his presidency like so many car bombs, IEDs, and suicide vests.