The amount of a hack someone is is inversely proportionate to how much their arguments make sense. This is why the likes of a Buckley or (occasionally) Scarborough may anger me for their viewpoints, they aren’t hacks. When they make their points, you can follow them. Not so for this idiot over on CNN who is, no joke, trying to draw a line between Bush and Obama. Really.

The items on the list are sometimes legitimate (of which there are very few):

10. Gay marriage: Both Obama and Bush agree that marriage is and should remain between one man and one woman. As far back as 2004, Obama said: “Gays … should not marry.” And in a 2007 Senate debate, he said: “I agree with most Americans, with Democrats and Republicans, with Vice President Cheney, with over 2,000 religious leaders of all different beliefs, that decisions about marriage, as they always have, should be left to the states. … Personally, I do believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.”

This just pisses me off, frankly, but as we’re still in a culture that has people insisting religion be a part of government I suppose I’m going to have to bite the bullet on it. Ideally it wouldn’t matter if a million religious leaders thought something, their opinion is worthless in terms of governance.

The list is sometimes kinda true but still dumb:

17. Racial profiling: Obama’s campaign literature states that he will call for a ban on racial profiling, even though Bush issued a directive that banned racial profiling in 2001. In his order, Bush said to the attorney general: “I hereby direct you to review the use by federal law enforcement authorities of race as a factor in conducting stops, searches and other investigative procedures. … I further direct that you report back to me with your findings and recommendations for the improvement of the just and equal administration of our nation’s laws.”

Okay, they agree on racial profiling. If anything this is more evidence of Bush drifting toward the left than Obama agreeing with Bush. One’s a man who fought racism his whole life, the other went to a college that banned interracial couples, which would you expect would be against racial profiling? Secondly, Bush didn’t call for a ban of a damn thing, you can read the thing there. It says “review”. Where’s the ban? Besides, this is the same guy that rounded up Arabs by the hundred as soon as the “War on Terror” started. I guess the “ban” didn’t apply to brown people with beards.

And sometimes the list is just retarded, examples of which are far too numerous:

6. Economics: Obama told reporters that he agreed with Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Bush’s bailout package, then voted for the $700 billion plan. And despite routinely criticizing “the Bush tax cuts,” Obama is now offering tax cuts of his own (although only for the 95 percent of taxpayers earning less than $250,000 a year). What a concept!

The first half of this assumes you didn’t read the news, the second assumes you’ve NEVER read the news. Paulson’s bailout plan was heavily modified and Obama only agreed to it in principle before getting it to a point he could accept. Besides, it’s kinda like agreeing that after your house gets broken into you should put in a security system. No brainer in the face of a situation like that.

As for the tax cuts, this woman seriously has to be mentally defective. The Bush tax cuts were cuts for the mega wealthy and tip-top corporations in an example of “trickle down economics” that gave little to people at the bottom. Obama’s tax plan actually raises taxes on the mega-wealthy in order to pay for the lower 95%’s tax cuts. They are, in fact, complete opposites. All this point says is “they agree that cutting taxes is good”, which is a lot like seeing a big fat guy and a gourmet chef and saying “these two agree that food is good!”

But I understand what’s going on. The terrified McCain supporters who aren’t ready to jump ship yet and just wait for 2010’s midterms are desperately scraping for something they can use to derail Obama’s momentum. Unfortunately it all comes across as dumb as this. There’s a reason McCain isn’t going to consult this list in a debate with Obama: if he says “yeah well Bush is a born-again Evangelical, and Barack Obama ALSO believes in Jesus! They’re the same!” then he’s going to look like a moron. Period.