Have They Forgotten?

This Wall Street Journal headline just stuns. There are no words:

'At Least Bush Kept Us Safe'

Bush kept us safe? Really? Like on 9/11, when 3,000 people died?

Or on August 28, 2005 when Hurricane Katrina hit and over 1,300 people died?

Bush kept us safe?

The column, from Peggy Noonan, is subtitled "The Two Words Democrats Don't Want Tacked On To That Sentence." You know, "At least Bush kept us safe ... Unlike Obama!"

Here are some words I could tack on to that sentence:

"At least Bush Kept Us Safe" * † ** ††


* Except for 9/11 ...
† And forgetting that whole anthrax thing, which everyone always forgets, even though a couple people died and stuff...
** And let's say Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster and leave it at that, forgetting the botched government response ...
†† And of course there's that whole War in Iraq thing which totally didn't need to happen, and which now Karl Rove is saying we wouldn't have done if we'd known Saddam didn't have WMD, which we all knew anyway, but who's counting, really ...

Right. Peggy Noonan, I want some of what you’re drinking. That Potomac Kool-Aid must extra strong these days.

(h/t, Attaturk.)

Hack-Tacular

Apparently I was a little premature in declaring my Wanker of the Weekend this morning. That honor surely goes to Amy Chozick, the Wall Street Journal “reporter” who started the whole “is Barack Obama too skinny to be president” meme last week. How did she come up with this story? The old fashioned way: the easy way.

There was no pounding the pavement, hitting up sources, or assembling and verifying facts for Chozick. Instead, she hit a Yahoo! message board, posted a “hey does anyone else think Obama is too skinny?” query, and when someone posted a snarky, sarcastic response, she bit.

The folks at Sadly, No! have the details:

Amy Chozick starts a thread:

Is Obama too skinny to be president?
15-Jul-08 06:04 pm

Does anyone out there think Barack Obama is too thin to be president? Anyone having a hard time relating to him and his “no excess body fat”? Please let me know. Thanks!

A reply is posted:

Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president?
15-Jul-08 10:21 pm

Yes I think He is to skinny to be President.Hillary has a potbelly and chuckybutt I’d of Voted for Her.I won’t vote for any beanpole guy.

Amy responds:

Re: Is Obama too skinny to be president? 16-Jul-08 09:12 am

Love your response and your username (onlinebeerbellygirl). Would you mind shooting me an email so I can ask you a few more quesitons? My email is [redacted] Thanks so much!
-Amy

The entire rest of the brief thread consists of people saying that the question is stupid, and/or making fun of Chozick.

SN! links to the Google cache of the thread; you can read the whole sorry thing for yourself. I'm not sure that "onlinebeerbellygirl" ever responded to Amy, because the quote that ended up in her story was the"I won't vote for any beanpole guy" bit.

This is what passes for journalism at the Wall Street Journal under Rupert Murdoch? Posting threads on message boards and then reporting the inane responses as if they are the actual, legitimate opinion of American voters? Cripes.

Hey, does anyone think Obama is a space alien? Amy Chozick of the Wall Street Journal wants to know.