Begala Bashes Bush, Bolsters Bachmann, and, as Ever, Beats the Liberal Drum

Anybody who, like former Clinton lackey Paul Begala, has enough guts to sneak over to Monica Lewinsky’s apartment to procure “the blue dress with the love ick on it” is okay in the I-Man’s book, even if that person also appears frequently on CNN and thinks President Obama is doing a good job.
 
“They want to essentially end Medicare to give tax breaks to the rich,” Begala said about Republicans. “They want to cut funding for alternative energy to give tax breaks to oil companies. They want to slash education and give tax breaks to companies that ship jobs overseas.”
 
As he sees it, Obama is fighting “some of the most far right forces that we’ve ever had assembled in this country;” forces like Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl, who, on Fox News Sunday yesterday, said that taxpayer subsidies should not be removed form big oil. Or, as Begala interpreted it, “He wants Exxon Mobil to continue to be one of the biggest welfare queens in America.”
 
Begala calmed down (a little) when asked about his four sons, the oldest of which will head off to college at William and Mary in the fall. “Hopefully the other three will go to UT,” said the Texas native. “I need some Longhorns in the family.”
 
Perhaps he should consider adopting Wyatt Imus, who turns 13 later this week and has his heart set on roping for the University of Texas someday. “Any trailer manufacturer who wants to sponsor Wyatt—now’s your chance!” Imus said. “He hasn’t won anything yet, but he will.”
 
It’s a decidedly more optimistic outlook than anyone, including the President, has on Afghanistan. “I think ten years is enough,” Begala said. “We drove out the Taliban, we destroyed Al-Qaeda in that country…my view is, let’s declare victory and get the hell out of there as safely and quickly as we can.”
 
After all, as Imus observed, Osama Bin Laden is dead. “Boy isn’t he!” Begala chirped. “Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.”
 
Predictably, but also maybe accurately, Begala refused to give former President George W. Bush any credit for killing Bin Laden. “They stood down the Bin Laden Unit at the CIA!” he yelled. “Bush said he was no longer interested in killing Bin Laden. He was interested in Iraq, which was no threat to America—none.”
 
Bush, in Begala’s tortured view, endangered the U.S. by engaging in a “quagmire war” in Iraq, where 4,500 troops have been killed and tens of thousands of people injured. While it might seem prudent for Democrats to hope somebody as dumb as Bush runs against Obama in 2012, Begala cautioned his cronies to be careful what they wish for.
 
“I’m haunted by the legend, which I believe is true, that the people who supported Jimmy Carter thought they wanted to run against Ronald Reagan, and they got him,” he said, adding that Rep. Michele Bachmann and former Godfather’s Pizza CEO Herman Cain are, for all their silliness, “impressive people, and they’re going to rally that base.”
 
Begala was less kind toward Imus’s guy Mitt Romney, who he thinks “looks like the guy who comes in the picture frame at the store,” and who is so phony he “makes mannequins look authentic.”
 
Asked why more people don’t watch CNN if it’s “the most trusted name in news,” Begala presumably shrugged as he replied, “How come more people go to a freak show than a museum? I can’t help that.”
 
-Julie Kanfer