George Bush -- "Cursed be thy name"

David Brooks NY Times column (reprinted in today's Pioneer Press) using speeches about Katrina by John Kerry and John Edwards as a metaphor for the conflict within the Democrat party is an insightful piece of writing that also spins some good phrases, especially vis a vis John Kerry.

Kerry began his speech by making the point that Bush and his crew are rotten. He then went on to make the point that Bush and his crew are loathsome. In the third section of the speech, Kerry left the impression that Bush and his crew are evil.

Now we all know people so consumed by hatred for George W. Bush that they haven't had an unpredictable thought in five years, but in Kerry's speech one sees this anger in almost clinical form.

In the first place, not even Karl Rove's worldview is so obsessively Bush-centric as Kerry's. There are many interesting issues raised by Katrina, but for Senator Ahab it all goes back to the great white monster, Bush. Bush and his crew should have known the levees were weak. Bush and his crew should have known thousands in New Orleans would be trapped. (Did I miss Kerry's own warnings on these subjects?)

All reality flows back to Bush. All begins with Bush, ends with Bush, is explained by Bush and is polluted by Bush, cursed be thy name.

And as the speech stretches on, a second thought occurs: Doesn't this guy ever get bored? If Kerry ever makes an anti-Bush jab, he makes it again. The old DeLay jibes, he makes them again. The Wolfowitz attacks, he makes them again. Porn movies have less repetition than this, and yet the "Mission Accomplished" carrier deck scene gets hauled out again, for one feels this is not a normal speech designed to persuade or inform, but a primitive rite designed to channel group outrage.

The whole column is worth a read.

UPDATE: Related theme from the Borowitz Report --

SCIENTISTS DOUBT EXISTENCE OF DEMOCRATS
Opposition Party Could Be Black Hole, Experts Says

With President George W. Bush's approval ratings plummeting in recent weeks, the inability on the part of Democrats to capitalize on the president's waning fortunes has caused some leading scientists to postulate that the Democratic Party may not exist at all.

Dr. Marisa Drazin, a leading scientist who for years has been questioning the existence of Democrats, said today that what many have thought to be the Democratic Party may in fact be nothing more than a black hole.

"When the president loses ten or twelve approval points, one would normally expect those approval points to go to the opposition party," Dr. Drazin said. "But instead, those points have vanished into thin air, leading one to conclude that the so-called Democratic Party does not exist."

Theories about the nonexistence of the Democratic Party are nothing new, said Dr. Drazin, who pointed out that scientists first developed them during the 1988 presidential campaign of then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis.

While the silence of the Democratic Party in recent weeks seems to bolster theories of the party's nonexistence, she said, there are still some nagging pieces of evidence to the contrary, such as the perpetually outspoken DNC chairman, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

"I've discussed the Howard Dean phenomenon with my colleagues," Dr. Drazin said. "And it's the consensus of the scientific community that there is no logical explanation for Howard Dean."