Rant of the Week: It's the Incompetence, stupid!

Democrats repeatedly make the claim that Bush and his administration are liars. The media reports this claim, but then reports the outraged denials of the Republicans and that is as far as it goes. Why? Because there is absolutely no way that the media could verify the claim even if it wanted to since lying is a subjective, not objective activity. That is, if a person says something that they think is true, but it isn't true, is that lying? Most people say no because it is the subjective intention of the person making the statement that matters, not the objective truthfulness of the statement.

As you can see, this lets Bush off the hook. There is very little evidence in the public domain, so far, for the proposition that Bush knowingly lied about Iraq, Hurricane Katrina response, the effect of his tax cuts on the deficit, and the effect on public education of his No Child Left Behind Act, just to name four huge mistakes his administration made. Indeed, the media probably believes that he didn't lie because the media considers him to be a man of little, if any, intellectual curiosity and therefore likely to believe what he is told by his advisors.

Imagine, however, if the Democrats argued that Bush isn't a liar, he is just terribly incompetent. That is much harder for the Republicans to defend, or the media to ignore, because the evidence is so overwhelming. Just consider the following:

Bush told us his tax cuts wouldn't increase the deficit, he was wrong.
Bush told us that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he was wrong.
Bush told us that our troops would be greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people, he was wrong.
Bush told us that Iraqi oil revenue would pay for Iraq's reconstruction, he was wrong.
Bush told us that the "mission was accomplished" in May of 2003, he was wrong.
Bush told us that his FEMA director was doing a "heck of a job," he was wrong.

The list could go on, but you get the point. Democrats need to start stressing his incompetence and to use that word. Senator Hillary Clinton did it in the speech that also compared the House of Representatives to a plantation, although those part of her comments were overlooked in the media because of the attention the Republicans focused on the plantation comments. Indeed, we think that is why the Republicans responded to the plantation remarks so forcefully because they wanted to shift the focus away from her incompetent line.

Democrats need to start singing the same tune. That tune is this: "This administration is incompetent and that incompetence is hurting America and all Americans. They are aided and abetted in their incompetence by a Republican Congress and a Republican Party that refuses to hold it accountable for their mistakes. The solution? Elect Democrats."

We have about nine months to get that message out. The time to start is now. America needs competent government and we aren't getting it.
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