Once in a great while I find myself wandering Democratic Underground (DU). It's always a refreshing experience.

The first thing I noted was a link posted site-wide about how to combat the "culture of incivility" present on DU. Interesting admission, since it's a board that does it's best to keep known conservatives off it -- unlike it's self-considered arch-nemesis Free Republic, on which anyone can post.

Another post which caught my attention was "Where/when did Bush say that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11?", in which a "mrgoth" asks, with no apparent sense of irony:

Where/when did Bush say that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11? I need to provide this for some freepers who are too lazy to look themselves. Thanks.

(Need I point out that "mrgoth" is also too lazy to look it up for himself?)

A respondant points to a truthout article which documents Bush saying:

There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al-Qaida ties, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.

And that Cheney said:

We've never been able to develop any more of that yet, either in terms of confirming it or discrediting it.

It's odd watching this dialog; the poster asks for something, the respondant provides something completely different, and then the poster acknowledges he thinks the response matches and thanks him!

Apparently, someone on FreeRepublic will now have to point out that "we have no evidence" is a different statement than "Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11".

In all seriousness, I'm watching a conversation among a group of people who all think the statement "we have no evidence as to whether X is true" is identical "X is true". Is there some kind of shared cognitive abnormality being expressed here? I mean, this is really odd.

Another really odd thing is that this guy seems to be trying prove Bush brainwashed people into thinking Iraq wasn't behind 9/11. Yet I thought the big theory was supposed to be that Bush brainwashed the public into believing Iraq was behind 9/11. I mean, which theory is it?

Or are people who are willing to vote for "Anyone but Bush" (a common theme) also simply willing to embrace any theory which makes Bush look bad, no matter how contradictory or how flimsy?

Another poster concurs that Bush claimed Iraq was not behind 9/11:

I remember seeing him say it..but since then he uses every possible opportunity to make an implied connection between Iraq and 9/11....For instance today in his press talk he said, while answering a question about Iraq..."I never forget the lesson of 9/11."....He knows that the public will make a subliminal connection between what happened on 9/11 and Saddam, even though he doesn't directly say it....He's really kind of diabolical!

One thread compares Bush to a chimp, and talks about how stupid he is, and the next thread discusses how he regularly employs, in off-the-cuff speech and questions, diabolical, subliminal sheeple mind-control.

So George W. Bush is a stupid, incompentant public speaker who is diabolically brilliant and persuasive!

This is a little like asking the Arab world who was responsible for 9/11: Mossad and the CIA! And we really admire OBL for standing up to the US by doing it!

Sigh. I guess I could point out this doesn't reflect well on liberal culture, but I expect my observation would be met with something along the lines of: You morons! Those aren't really stupid liberals -- those are really evil Republican agents disguising themselves as liberals to discredit Howard Dean! You're so gullible, just like all the other stupid sheeple!

Lastly, I wonder: Why do we have such disrespect for the American public? How can you believe you're the "people's party", when you regularly refer to the public as stupid "sheeple"? Jesus also called people "sheep", but he did so in a manner which implied the shepherd cared about them -- he didn't use it merely as a dismissive, derogatory insult to intelligence.