[Gabz]

I guess we will just have to respectfully agree to disagree.

I don't believe the left is capable of being offended and are just feigning it to fuel their divide and conquer strategy. The left will use the disapproval of some social conservatives to their benefit in a two-fold manner. It allows them to claim to be "just as moral and upstanding" as conservatives and to initiate cat-fights such as have occurred on these threads where we appear to be eating our own.

I am truly sorry to see they have been succeeding.

[Wallace T.]

The fact is the Administration must have known (1) that Laura Bush's remarks would offend a portion of its political base and (2) that leftists would roil the waters to exploit it. The audience that Laura Bush was playing to were persons of considerable influence in Washington who see themselves as a nuanced, sophisticated elite, superior to the "redneck Bible thumpers" of flyover country and the "maggot infested leftists" in the big cities and the college towns. Mrs. Bush was playing to that audience. As for the social conservatives, they are basically useless to the Bushes since his re-election. The "true believers' among liberals never liked nor supported President Bush and never will.

So, for the price of a few bawdy jokes, President Bush and his Administration may get some favorable press and perhaps some good relations with some powerful lobbyists and corporate donors.