I protest.

Thomas Cole, idiot.

I don't really expect very much from most Republicans, particularly if they're from the South, but Cole has really gone out of his way to show himself to be not only a fool but a malicious fool. Josh Marshall calls Cole's comments "outrageous," but I think that falls a bit short. Cole claims that he does not

believe that a vote against President Bush is equivalent to a vote for Adolf Hitler.

But Cole did say,

"I promise you this, if George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election, it's that simple. It will be interpreted that way by enemies of the United States around the world."

"What do you think Hitler would have thought if Roosevelt would've lost the election in 1944? He would have thought American resolve was [weakening]."

"What would the confederacy have thought if Lincoln would have lost the election of 186[4]?"

"I stand by these statements and do believe that this November is again another important time in history, just like Lincoln's victory in 1864 and Roosevelt's victory in 1944. President Bush has proved that he will stand up to our enemies and I believe that is his most important job as Commander in Chief,"

If Bush loses, bin Laden wins? I Don't Think So. Just what has Bush been doing for the last year? He certainly has not been pursuing bin Laden. He has been fucking around in Iraq getting thousands of Iraqi civilians and hundreds of American soldiers killed, with more dying every day, but bin Laden, or at least al Qaeda, has been having a field day. The American invasion of Iraq was the best thing bin Laden could have hoped for; it took the heat off him and distracted the United States with an morass that will remain chaotic (and therefore easy pickings for al Qaeda) for the foreseeable future.

To think that Bush has proven "that he will stand up to our enemies" requires one to conveniently forget or ignore his incompetent reaction to 9/11, his failure to follow up on the Clinton administrations efforts to capture or kill bin Laden before 9/11 and his blind rush into a tar-baby of a war. A war that he had planned from his first day in office.

Cole compares Bush to Roosevelt and Lincoln. Cole is a fucking idiot. By 1944, Roosevelt had already led the United States out of the worst economic disaster of its history and through the biggest war in the history of the world. Roosevelt had established his credentials as a great President, and had done it in spite of the polio and polio-related problems that eventually killed him. As for Lincoln, by his reelection in 1864 the South had essentially lost the Civil War. Sherman's March to the Sea had been completed and the heart had been cut out of the Confederacy. There was more of the war to go, but again, Lincoln had by this time established his credentials during one of the bloodiest, nastiest periods in the country's history.

Both Roosevelt and Lincoln were intelligent, well-spoken, well-read and great orators. Bush doesn't read, he stumbles over words and can't deliver an unrehearsed speech to save his life. Roosevelt and Lincoln dealt with facts as they truly were. Bush can't see past the wish-fulfillment fantasies of an ignorant, spoiled rich kid. Success is built upon accepting reality as it is and then dealing with it on its terms. Only failure can come from denying reality, which might explain why every venture in which Bush was involved failed. Including his Presidency, as it happens. Thousands dead, millions out of work. On his watch. His only reaction is to continue to build his fantasies.

Bush is no Lincoln. Bush isn't even an Andrew Johnson. I suspect that history will paint Bush as at least as bad a President as Grant. Perhaps worse.

Where does that leave Cole and his claims that "a vote against Bush is a vote for bin Laden?" (No, that's not what he said, but it is quite certainly what he meant.) If he really believes this, Cole is a fool; if he doesn't, he's not only a fool but a liar as well. Whether he believes it or not, though, he is trying to ensure Bush's reelection in the most malicious way possible, by trying to tie voting for John Kerry (that is, voting against Bush) to "the threat of terrorism" in the minds of the ignorant and gullible.

Which probably describes most of his constituents. What but an ignorant and gullible electorate would choose such a malicious fool as their representative?