Fred Barnes Is Insane

Posted on 01/13/2009 at 11:40 am by Bob Cesca

Freddie the Beetle Barnes constructed a list of President Bush’s top ten greatest achievements (summarized/paraphrased here):

10. Ignoring the climate crisis and Kyoto.

9. Torture! (Seriously!)

8. Eavesdropping and generally deceiving the public

7. Supporting Israel (Barnes writes: “Bush was right.”)

6. No Child Left Behind! (Seriously!)

5. Supporting democracy (How about that. Never before has any American achieved this!)

4. Medicare Prescription Drug benefit (see also “the donut hole” among other things)

3. Sam Alito and John Roberts

2. East Asia relationships (He didn’t barf on anyone.)

1. The surge!

Yep. Even if we were to concede that the surge worked, rather than the Anbar Awakening creating a false sense of surge efficacy, the president’s greatest achievement was his decision to attempt to repair years of his own phenomenally awful and destructive blunders.

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  • LameDuckHunting

    All I can say is Don’t Eat The NeoCon Acid.

  • http://www.politicalpartypooper.wordpress.com/ politicalpartypooper

    Bob,I just read that entire article. While your list is technically correct, it isn’t even close to what was written.First on the list is a skewed view (according to your lean) about Kyoto, and this is the only part of that list I am going to tackle. I do not agree with Bush’ reasons for never bringing it to the Senate for ratification (Clinton never brought it either). Simply put, I do not agree with it at all.I’m all for Greenhouse gas reduction, and vastly increased emmissions control. But to base the entire protocol and its results on a new financial sector, using cap and trade, and credits to regulate it? In short, creating an entire new financial market for the world’s market to fuck up? Are we fucking insane?So long as Capitalism is used to regulate the protocol, it will fail. Especially during times of economic downturn, it will fail. Carbon emission trading and financing based on 1990 emissions levels could never have created an equitable market for every nation. Russia, for example, was one of the world’s worst offenders in 1990, so basically anything they did would have reduced their greenhouse gas emissions. Their standards, and most of Europe’s would have met with heavy EPA fines had they been forced to meet our standards of emissions for those times.I honestly do not understand the Cap and trade system, and emissions trading, and I work as a financial advisor, you know, in the investment community. I won’t buy that garbage, I won’t sell it, and I won’t even mention it to my clients. Not unless I want that portion of their portfolio to suddenly become worthless. It’s equivalent to Credit Default swaps. It’s a bubble built by people who do not understand what they are buying, and what the risks are.Using that market to regulate greenhouse gas/emissions is about the worst way that could have been found to change our air. Mark my words, the next “‘bubble” that cripples the world’s economy will be “Green”.

  • bibimimi

    Sad stuff. What a waste of human potential. This is all they have, keep workin’ it.Next stop, and extended care facility where they will be wiping the dribble off yer chin, Fred.

  • EL Mystico

    >>>”the Kyoto global warming treaty so loved by Al Gore, the environmental lobby, elite opinion, and Europeans.”Hey look, it’s the precise moment where I stopped caring what Fred Barnes had to say. In the words of Bugs Bunny… What a maroon.

  • GItheJOE

    BOB, DON”T YOU DARE CONCEDE THE SURGE!!!What worked? Are roads/hospitals/bridges/schools fixed? Do they have a functioning government that won’t kill each other without adult supervision? Are oil revenues getting to all three divisions? Are pregnant women still walking into crowded markets with bombs strapped to them? Have we taken down the concrete barriers in Baghdad?FUCK NO!This war is being measured by how many soldiers didn’t fucking die each month. That is a great standard. Gee, I wonder if the wounded ratio has gone up?Do you know why less soldiers are dying? Because we have armor on our HUMMVs and MARPs. You know that shit we should of had before we went. Oh yeah, you fight with the Army you have. My bad.

  • Bob Cesca

    >>BOB, DON”T YOU DARE CONCEDE THE SURGE!!!I’M NOT!! I WAS BEING HYPOTHETICAL!!!!

  • Bob Cesca

    >>While your list is technically correct, it isn’t even close to what was written.How is this even possible? To be correct, but also not even close?

  • EL Mystico

    Plus PPP, the guy wasn’t writing about the problems with the cap and trade system he was like… faggy liberals with their hemp suits and their bongs rips and faggy Europeans were for Kyoto, so it’s a good thing we didn’t do that.

  • GItheJOE

    >>Even if we were to concede that the surge workedSorry, this made my Agent Orange act up and I kind of blacked out and just typed. I am calm now.

  • http://www.politicalpartypooper.wordpress.com/ politicalpartypooper

    Bob,Your version is an inflammatory caricature of what Barnes wrote. However, I concede the fact that you did note your list as being a summary/paraphrase. I just like my name for what you did better. :o )

  • brutlyhonest

    RE: the surge:

    Ignoring the fact that invading Iraq to punish Uncle Saddam for not kicking Iran’s ass as he had been paid to do by reagan and bush I, the recommended course of action to “liberate” Iraq required many more people than rummie wanted to use. He dictated a low end strength to prove his transformation theory (better war through expensive technology). While he was correct that we could easily overwhelm their military, he ignored the stabilization phase because the neocons believed their own BS about being greeted as liberators.

    Dickwads, all of them.

  • http://www.politicalpartypooper.wordpress.com/ politicalpartypooper

    El Mystico,I know he wasn’t writing about the cap and trade problem. I mentioned in my comment that I disagreed with Bush, and proceeded to list why I didn’t like the Kyoto Notocol.By the way, El, faggy Europeans? I thought they were just whiny?

  • Lyle

    Fred should pen a children’s pop-up book about Bush’s great accomplishments, like Owen from Throw Momma From The Train.

  • SillyGit

    All I can say is Don’t Eat The NeoCon Acid.

    Must be that brown shit again.

  • LameDuckHunting

    Yeah, SillyGit…..it matches their shirts…..

  • El Mystico

    >>>By the way, El, faggy Europeans? I thought they were just whiny?Nope. Little known fact: All French people are gay. They only reproduce to spite us.

  • prcleburne

    Not knowng Fred Barne’s history, I have to ask : This article is a parody , right ? Right ?