The "DLC Lies" Commercial
 

Rush and his followers seem to be getting a lot of mileage out of the Democratic Leadership Council commercial
that addresses salmonella and arsenic.  To hear Rush tell it, W. hasn't done anything even remotely related to
these issues, and Democrats are simply lying.

But the new Bush administration did, in fact, issue an order halting the salmonella testing of meat served in public schools.
And they also cancelled a Clinton directive that lowers the accepted levels of arsenic in drinking water.
Those facts are not in dispute.

And these actions could result in salmonella poisoning or stop the prevention of cancer caused by arsenic.
W. either doesn't know this, knows this and doesn't care, or knows this and decided that the risk is worth the reward.

Limbaugh doesn't want to deal with the issue in these terms, so he rephrases Democrats' disagreement to the policies
with the following lies:

"Democrats say Bush WANTS there to be salmonella poisoning."
"Democrats say Bush IS TRYING to poison your children."
"Democrats say Bush WANTS to FORCE ARSENIC DOWN YOUR CHILD'S THROAT."

Limbaugh dishonestly tries to convey that Democrats are hysterical.  He does so by taking the Democrats' contention
that Bush's indifference is potentially dangerous and twisting it to seem as if they are saying that Bush has an evil,
malevolent plot to purposely cause damage.  And since very few people believe that Bush WANTS to hurt anyone's
health, many are fooled by Limbaugh's straw-man argument.

There's a big difference between wanting a bad result from one's actions and not caring what the result of one's actions are;
drunk drivers, for example, don't typically want to cause accidents, they just create situations in which accidents are more
likely to occur.

Bush also used this technique during one of the debates with Al Gore.  Gore criticized a Bush proposal which Gore claimed
would have a deleterious effect, and Bush responded that he was hurt that Gore would accuse him of, "not having a good heart."  Bush never responded to the issue, he just hid behind his own nice intentions, which changed the subject.

So even though some people may get sick as a direct result of Bush policies, we aren't supposed to criticize Bush or even
question those policies because he didn't directly hope that they'd get sick. Here's a news flash: Unintentional damage
can still cause great harm.

It's not the evil that lurks in the hearts of men that cause most of our problems; it's ignorance, arrogance, and indifference.  And now we're being told to overlook ignorance, arrogance, and indifference and focus on "what's in the heart" of the perpetrator.

Most bad policy in Washington is not the result of people TRYING to cause damage; it happens by accident.
And if we let this administration have carte blanche to implement ill-advised policies unless we can prove an
evil intent on their part, we are going to have "bad policy by accident" a lot more.

I've heard the commercial to which Rush refers.  Nobody ever says W. wants more salmonella poisoning or cancer;
the announcer does say that we will be put at greater risk of these maladies through Bush's policies.
What is so dishonest about that?

Republicans are resorting to a straw man argument that goes something like this: "Democrats say that George W. Bush
is going to come to your town and purposely put arsenic in the river, and he's going to go to your child's school and
purposely put salmonella in your child's hamburger and force it down your child's throat.  Do you believe them?"

The problem is, that's not an honest argument.
That should come as no surprise, because we rarely get one from Limbaugh and his followers.