Digby, the Orthogonian problem, and the best thing about Palin's nomination

Paraphrasing Digby [do click the home link, too, to view just yesterday's posts):

Sarah Palin is a product of the Rove/Delay big-box-store-type selling of right-wing supremacy: the "you, too, can win elections and screw those you envy" political handbook that teaches you how to swift-boat your opponent and, once you gain office, how to: (1) dangle red meat idealogical, supposed battles to the extremists of your party; (2) immediately fire everyone whose opinion may differ with your own (God forbid you'd expose yourself to contrary or, even worse, thought-provoking, views) and, (3) thereby, enable you to hire other political hacks beholden to you whose incompetence will gum up the works of government enough to overthrow American social order and be supplanted by fascism.

Orthogonian: Because only readers of Perlstein's Nixonland know what the term Orthoginian means, we need to come up with an acronym or new term that conveys to others who haven't read it the wealth of the concept: a suspicious, envious, authoritarian, revengeful, me-first, materialistic envier of wealth who knows how to tap into the cynicism of others so as to ensure votes for him/herself and like-minded [bat-shit crazy] others who you can intimidate to create your very own dictatorship, where it surprises no one who hears you say "If I do it, it means it's not illegal"!

The best thing about the Palin nomination is that it has forced party-faithful Republican men to stand up and say things they totally don't believe, like "sexism is wrong," and "a woman's place does not have to be in the kitchen or nursery."

Just because it grows....

At today's (7/15/08) press conference, Bush hemmed/hawwed about the economy, then justified all problems: Our economy is growing, so everything is OK!

AARRGGHHHH! That's his measuring stick? If it grows it's good? Cancer grows, bacteria grows, mildew grows. By that logic, if it doesn't grow, it's bad or, alternately, irrelevant.

If growth/no growth are his criteria, let's evaluate:

Growth:
Jobs? Unemployment is still near 5%, so that's ok? [but do the wages and expertise of Fast Food clerks = machinists?]
Wealth? All his friends are filthy rich, so that's ok?
Gold: when confidence tanks, gold value increases, like right now it's at a near all time high (>$950 oz)
Deficit? Pay no attention to this category of exponential growth cuz Cheney says: Ronald Reagan proved deficits don't matter. (fellow Americans: do you believe debt doesn't matter?)

Shrinkage
Value of the dollar? [tanking daily]
Ice caps?
Regulations on banks, food safety, drug safety, import safety, ...

Really, Bush is so easy to read: if it grows it's good; if it shrinks it's not important.

By the way, in case you haven't heard/read the news: the value of We The People was devalued recently. Individually we're worth $1 million less than we were just a couple of years ago. Apparently this is the figure agreed upon by the powers that be to calculate compensation for our demise. Alternatively, this figure is also used collectively to determine if a life-saving remedy is cost worth y enough to implement (i.e., clean air, water, anti-pollution efforts). Note: the good news for the greedy sociopaths that tend to rise to the leadership roles of almost all societys: the lower the value on human life, the more you can rationalize and minimize the importance of their protection.