Accidental Blogger

Here are two brazen statements made by high profile public figures which illustrate that to become a successful right winger, one must eschew all sense of shame.

Last Sunday on  60 Minutes (CBS), George W. Bush was interviewed by Scott Pelley. Here is one exchange that provides a glimpse into Bush’s unrepentant heart and arrogant mind.

PELLEY: Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job?

BUSH: That we didn’t do a better job or they didn’t do a better job?

PELLEY: Well, that the United States did not do a better job in providing security after the invasion.

BUSH: Not at all. I am proud of the efforts we did. We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we’ve endured great sacrifice to help them. That’s the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that’s significant enough in Iraq.

And he also sleeps well at night, we are told!

After Bush’s January 10 speech, Condoleeze Rice was grilled by senators about Bush-Cheney’s plan to surge in Iraq. During the questioning Sen Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., made the observation that neither she (Boxer) nor Rice would lose any children overseas, fighting Bush’s immoral war.

”Who pays the price?” Boxer repeatedly demanded. ”You’re not going to pay a particular price,” she told Rice, because the secretary has no ”immediate family” at risk.

Rush Limbaugh, the untiring champion of women, minorities and civil rights, had this to say on his program about the Boxer-Rice exchange. (Actually, a number of right wing attack dogs have been all over Sen Boxer for her "insensivity" towards a single / childless woman!)

Limbaugh: Barbara Boxer hit below the ovaries yesterday with Condoleezza Rice during the hearings that they were conducting on the president’s new strategy…..

I don’t know where to start with this. Folks, this is, this is — well it’s unbelievable. This is — can you even describe this kind of thinking? Here you have a rich white chick with a huge, big mouth, trying to lynch this — an African American woman — right before Martin Luther King Day, hitting below the ovaries here. What about the childless Gloria Steinem? Drum her out of the feminist movement? 

Women, children, African Americans, Martin Luther King?  Rush, we hardly knew ye!

Update: Laura Bush recently made a more direct reference to Rice’s unmarried, childless status than Senator Boxer did.  The right wing was predictably silent about Bush’s remark.