This is usually what I say to people who say to me, "So, did you hear what Bush said today?" I mean, we all know what fresh hell the charlatan-in-chief unleashes on us every day. But last night it was personal: he was in my personal hometown, Mobile, Alabama.
Now, for those who are unfamiliar with Mobile, let me explain it like this. It's in Alabama, so there are of course wingnuts of every stripe running around saying ridiculous things. There are a couple of megachurches, too, with everything that entails, and a knee-jerk rightie editorial board for the local paper. But there's also a large public university, along with a Jesuit college, a fairly prominent (and seemingly well-tolerated) gay community, and a healthy Democratic party in Mobile. It's a mixed bag, basically.
That's why it severely burns me up to see what he said this time, at a fundraiser for possibly the dimmest bulb in the Senate, one Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III (and yes, that is the man's real name):
"We are facing ideologues with a vision of how they want the world to look," Bush told a crowd of about 850 people at the Arthur R. Outlaw Mobile Convention Center. "They can't stand freedom. They can't stand the idea of people expressing their vision in the public square."
link
Ideologues? Can't stand freedom? Can't stand people expressing their vision???
We know the boy-king is fond of attacking us as ideologues, and that he loves to toss that "freedom" word around. In the words of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."
But let's talk about this expressing vision in the public square thing. As karendc pointed out yesterday, there were protesters in Mobile yesterday as well. The park in those pictures is called Spanish Plaza, near the heart of Downtown Mobile. My dad used to work at the TV station down the street from there. But this, of course, was one of those vaunted "free-speech zones" the Bushies are so fond of. The Bush speech was held at the Convention Center, as noted above. Spanish Plaza is 6/10 of a MILE from the Convention Center. They couldn't even see the Convention Center from where they were standing.
And WE'RE the ones squelching free expression? Please. This president and his cronies have done more to kill the First Amendment than anyone else in our history. The boy-king seems bound and determined to make this country into some kind of bloated banana republic, and what's awful is, it seems to be working. I can't believe how far we've fallen in just 6 1/2 short years.
America used to stand for something. Even I, who was born the year Reagan was inaugurated and who has lived most of my life under Republican rule, know the standards we're supposed to uphold. With statements like this, in my own freaking hometown of all places, this president is putting the finishing touches on one of the grandest acts of sabotage ever imagined: the destruction of the United States of America, as a bearer of standards and an example of enlightened democracy.
I don't know how many more blows we can withstand...