BEGALA ON IMUS
Paul Begala made some exceedingly bizarre statements on the Don Imus show Friday:
“Everybody who supports Bush kind of knows in their bones that he is kind of our Kim Jong-il,” the bitter-sounding Clintonista told radio host Don Imus. “[He’s] sort of the befuddled ne’er-do-well son of a former leader. We know he’s not quite up to the job, so we overreact.”
Defending the Bush-bashing Texas singing group the Dixie Chicks, Begala continued the comparison between Kim and Bush, complaining that “any criticism of the beloved leader [draws the response] ‘They must be hanged, they must be imprisoned, they must be silenced.'”
The Texas-born political consultant echoed lead singer Natalie Maines’ original comment, saying that he, too, was “ashamed, embarrassed [and] chagrined” that Bush was from the Lone Star state.
Earlier in the interview, Begala revisited the 2000 Florida election controversy, renewing the shopworn complaint, “They stole the election!”
I heard this one on the radio Friday morning as it was happening but forgot to blog on it. The man’s a loon. The idea that Bush stole the election somehow, despite the obvious fact that Gore’s folks did everything they could to overturn the legitimate results, is just absurd. This meme persists despite the well-publicized fact that every count ever done had Bush winning Florida. Even the after-the-fact counts by the mass media outlets had Bush winning with every conceivable counting methodology but one.
As one of John Hawkins’ commentators noted, “As soon as anyone says that the Republicans stole the 2000 election, everything that follows is total b-s-.”
(Hat tip: Right Wing News)
That must have been some Imus show. Imus looks like a total freak and mumbles like a complete psychopath. Why they ever decided to televise his show, I don’t know (although I think they took it off of MSNBC now). I say let Begala talk. The more he says — as a “leader” of the Dems — the more they just turn off heartland voters and swing voters in key states. People are trying to draw comparisons between the two Bush presidencies, but the Democrats were never in such a self-destruction mode in ’91 or ’92.
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