Wanted: GOP demagogues; 4 month temp. position, pays well

So this is the kind of rabid, revolting talk that Americans are going to be subjected to for the next 4 1/2 months - fear mongering at its worst about a would-be Obama administration. What a surprise.

Here are a few despicable examples of the many that have been broadcast over the airwaves in recent weeks. Listen to the video clip above as conservative talk show host Hugh Hewitt leaves no demagogic stone unturned when talking about an Obama victory in regard to the USC/Ohio State game on Sept. 13. (Too bad the game isn't on Sept. 11 - that would have been too perfect.) An excerpt:

And none of the USC people will give up their tickets to me. I'd pay fair price. They — they know Ohio State's gonna slaughter the Trojans. They know that they're gonna slaughter the Trojans, and therefore they do not want me there at the bloodbath, since it's probably the last football game we'll ever get to see before the United States gets blown up by the Islamists under Obama. I — I would like to see Ohio State slaughter USC. This is what I'm living for right now.

And they said that Jerry Falwell is dead.

But wait, there's more.

John Gibson of Faux News fame recently entertained former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton on his radio show. Wild comedy ensued when the two began fear mongering discussing a possible (probable) Obama Presidency. Take a listen to this claptrap...

GIBSON: The Obama team is going back to some of the old complaints about the war and the war on terror... that the left has been articulating for a long time now, and not really coming up with anything new.

BOLTON: Yeah I think honestly that's an optimistic view of it, that it will simply be a replay of the Clinton administration. It will simply have more embassy bombings, more bombings of our warships like the Cole, more World Trade Center attacks. That would be the best outcome from that perspective.

Does Bolton have any credibility at all? Did he ever as our ambassador to the UN? Many who look at his record would probably strongly conclude that he has none. My favorite Bolton bon mot - speaking about the UN in 1994, he is purported to have said, "There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States. [...] The Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Quite naturally, Bush nominated him to be our UN ambassador. And Bush wonders why he couldn't get Bolton confirmed in the Senate. In fact, Bush had to use a recess appointment to get him to the UN in the first place. That one ranks right up there with appointing Michael Brown as head of FEMA, a man who had as much experience at handling natural disasters as I do.

Someone needs to give Bolton a little history lesson...

• The September 11 attacks happened on Bush's watch

• The 1993 WTC attack happened a mere 36 days after President Clinton took office

• The attack on the USS Cole happened on Oct. 12, 2000, and the FBI's final report was issued on Jan. 19, 2001. Just imagine those headlines from the right-wingnuts in the media had Clinton responded in the waning hours of his presidency: Bill Clinton retaliates for Cole attack to deflect attention from presidential pardons!!! would have screamed Faux News, etc.

• The embassy bombings? Yes, they happened on President Clinton's watch, and when the U.S. military retaliated on Aug. 20, 1998, Repubes in Congress, who were busy impeaching him for a blow job, cried that he was trying to deflect attention away from the Lewinsky witch hunt scandal.

I'm not absolving President Clinton of all blame for the terrorism that rocked U.S. locations around the world in his second term (and the first WTC attack early in his first), but to blame him for these attacks is absurd, and in the case of 9-11, utterly laughable.

The myth that Clinton did nothing to combat terrorism in the 1990s has been thoroughly debunked, so I'm not going to waste a whole lot of time on it here. All I'll add is that it's been refuted by people who were there, such as Richard Clarke and George Tenet.

My point is that trying to blame Clinton for every bad terrorist attack is absurd, but we've seen these plays called by Republicans before, most recently before the 2006 election. Let's hope they keep trotting out this cliché time and again before November. I don't think a majority of voters could possibly be naïve enough to believe it.

Rudy's broken record: Dems still on defense on terrorism

If this Giuliani tripe in the video above sounds familiar, it's because it is - it's from the play book that Bush used in 2004 against John Kerry.

Seriously, why is this man still opening up his mouth? What's more, I'd like to know how enduring 9-11 makes Rudy any sort of an expert on terrorism. His decisions prior to 9-11 were a disaster for New York City, from deciding to put the city's emergency response center at the World Trade Center (after the 1993 WTC bombing) to not addressing the the radio problems of the NYPD and FDNY, which certainly cost both departments lives on the morning of 9-11. He likes to rail on Obama's lack of foreign policy experience, but what experience did he have? Being a mayor of NYC doesn't qualify one to run the country any more (and I'd say maybe even less) than a U.S. Senator. No wonder voters overwhelmingly rejected him.

Pretty funny to hear Rudy talk about what we should have done to the people responsible for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Or, should I say, try to talk about it. The men responsible for the '93 attack, Mohammad Salameh, Nidal Ayyad, Mahmud Abouhalima, Ahmad Ajaj and Mohammed Jamal Khalifa were brought to justice. In 1994, Salameh, Ayyad, Abouhalima and Ajaj were all sentenced to life in prison. Mohammed Jamal Khalifa was deported in 1995 and was acquitted in Jordan of all charges.

Just another quick point - isn't our base in Guantanamo Bay considered U.S. territory? Just a thought I had after listening to Giuliani talk about extending rights to people abroad.

Anyway, I digress, but I'd like to know which country Giuliani thinks we should have invaded because of the '93 bombing? What's more, Rudy didn't open his mouth in the 1990s while he was mayor of NYC about the piss-poor job he thought our government was doing, did he? Funny how the Clinton administration wasn't doing a poor job of combating terrorism until he decided to run for the U.S. Senate in 2000 and for president earlier this year.

It's also pretty funny to hear a former U.S. Attorney having contempt for the law enforcement approach to combating terrorism.

And the USS Cole bombing that Giuliani and Republicans like to endlessly cite as an example of Democrats' weakness? It happened on October 12, 2000, and the Navy released its report on January 19, 2001, hours before George W. Bush assumed the presidency. Exactly what was President Clinton supposed to do, hours before he left office?

I guess Giuliani thinks that most Americans are stupid and don't read about this stuff.

Giuliani's mentioning what Hillary said about Obama (multiple times) also falls flat, but get used to that - it's what Republicans are going to try and use against Obama in the general election this fall. I don't think it's going to work. Why mention what Hillary said, Rudy? You can't come up with any criticisms of your own? It's a pathetic attempt to try and be clever, to use a Democrat's words against another Democrat. No wonder this guy didn't win one state during the primaries. Oh well, back to profiting from 9-11, Mr. Mayor.

Please, McCain, pick 9iu1iani - it would be a dream.