A little more on Bush's "Democrat" slur

As most of you know, I'm a big fan of Podcasts. As long as I've owned an iPod, I was a bit late coming to the Podcasting game, but last year I discovered them in a big way.

One Podcast I never miss is It's All Politics, a Podcast hosted by Ken Rudin and Ron Elving - two political commentators for National Public Radio. Their 10-12 minute take on the big issues in Washington is essential listening.

Last week, the duo spent a few minutes going over the history of Republicans using "Democrat" to describe the Democratic Party.

I have to confess, and I really should just let it die, but I got irked all over again. Of course, Bush has begged off inquiries on multiple occasions since this utterance during his State of the Union Speech three weeks ago: "And I congratulate the Democrat majority."

Elving and Rudin then played a clip of Bush brushing it off, saying it was an "oversight" and that he "didn't even realize he said it," accompanied by his characteristic snide sneer.

President Bush has tried to shovel some pretty nasty fecal matter into the mouths of Americans since he was appointed president in the fall of 2000, but this is one of his biggest. Bush has turned blowing smoke into an art form.

As Rudin and Elving rightfully pointed out, this slur has a long history in the Republican Party, going back to at least to the era of Joe McCarthy, who flat out refused to refer to the Democratic Party as Democratic.

Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, used to coach Republicans to refer to Democrats this way, to intentionally rile them up. And this slur has Republican pollster Frank Luntz's fingerprints all over it, too.

The bottom line is that the line was intentional, and it underscores the pettiness of our frat boy president. Notice I didn't say fraternity boy president, but really, it wasn't intentional. I didn't even know I wrote it.