Ladies and Gentlemen, the Leader of the Free World

Editor's note: The following is a reprint of a post by Tim Grieve on Salon.com's War Room. My conclusion? Our president doesn't have a clue.

Thursday, Nov. 8, 2007 06:26 EST

Business is great, people are terrific

Here's the New York Times this morning with the latest news on the economy:
"Stock markets plummeted and the dollar sank to a record low against the euro yesterday as investors worldwide grew skittish over rising oil prices and the prospect of a substantial economic slowdown in the United States.
"The Dow Jones industrial average fell 360 points and the broader stock market dropped nearly 3 percent, driven down by fear that the troubles in housing are likely to continue well into next year, contributing to further losses in credit markets and spreading pain to the rest of the economy. After a relatively strong summer, consumer spending is expected to tighten and business profits slow in the months ahead, analysts said.
"''We are experiencing among our clients an awakening that the United States is in big trouble,' said Erik Nielsen, chief Europe economist at Goldman Sachs."

And here's George W. Bush yesterday on why he thinks that a Republican will win the White House in 2008: "The economy is in pretty good shape, and we've got some issues, but the economy is pretty strong, which -- and the other side does want to raise taxes."
In other news, Bush said yesterday that, "If you lived in Iraq and had lived under a tyranny, you'd be saying, 'God, I love freedom!' -- because that's what's happened." And asked what message he has delivered to Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Bush said: "You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time."
― Tim Grieve
Posted in: George W. Bush

Westboro Baptist Church: Agents of Satan? Or merely contemptible, low-life, black-hearted, despicable pieces of shit?

If you're not aware of this morally bereft, disgustingly offensive organization, it is a group that believes that the war in Iraq is punishment for the US's tolerance of homosexuality. This idea is bizarrely stupid and deeply offensive on its own, but they're entitled to it, and it's not what earned them this diatribe.

No, their sin is that they've used this idea to justify, get ready for it, the picketing of funerals for soldiers, carrying signs with such egregiously, colossally offensive slogans as "God hates fags", and "Thank God for dead soldiers". Read those again. It's unconscionable, isn't it? Remember, they are doing this at funerals, with these soldiers' poor parents forced to endure this unbelievably immoral onslaught on top of their burden of grief... one reels at the awful, callous, detestable wrongness of the dregs of humanity that call themselves the Westboro Baptists.

I don't believe in hell, but I hope there is one, for the sake of terrorists and Westboro Baptists. May they both burn there forever.