When Their Back is to the Wall

I guess I should have expected this time was going to come. I've finally lost someone I once considered a friend over politics.

I have plenty of friends I disagree with politically. We have a lot of fun sometimes, arguing in circles and we laugh a lot afterward. We never get personal, never call each other names. We have respect for each other.
But as Shrubya's poll numbers decline and the Administration shows it's true incompetence in various ways (Karl Rove, Katrina and the fallout, etc.) some people can't argue the facts anymore. When faced with facts they cannot refute, they resort to calling people names and insulting them. This is when I stop being friends with them. If you don't have respect for someone on that level to respectfully disagree with them, I don't want any part of you.

On another forum, I posted a story from a Baton Rouge paper under the headline "Remember the Picture of the Submerged Buses?" After Katrina, every news outlet and right-wing parrot was asking why the governor and/or mayor didn't use those buses to get people out (never mind that those buses had to be driven by people who had families that probably needed to be evacuated too - the exact situation we saw in Houston where people stopped coming to work at the airport, but I digress). The article clearly stated that FEMA told the Governor and Mayor they had to approve the buses used for evacuation.
Suddenly I am being called a liar and twisting things - that one had nothing to do with the other. There is no way the person doing this didn't know what people had been saying about that initial picture. In fact, I'd lay money he was someone saying the same thing. Temporary amnesia seems to take over when the facts disagree with the way they want to believe things have happened. He can't argue the point, so he resorts to name-calling in a public forum.

I had a source - which I reprinted part of and linked to the rest that stated the situation. Yet I was called a liar;

I can't understand what is going on in this country when seemingly intelligent people have to follow someone in their political party so blindly they can't accept or level any criticism. I sure don't do that with the Democrats - I get frustrated and disagree at times. My one close friend who voted for Shrubya even expressed some reservations about how he handled the aftermath of the hurricane - but he lived through a few natural disasters and knows what to expect. Is that what it comes down to? You have to have some personal experience to refer to - the suffering of others no longer matters?

I suppose I should take some comfort that those who have a blind, Nazi-like allegiance to Shrubya are starting to feel the heat - it means his incompetence is finally being called on the carpet and they can’t argue the facts because the facts prove them wrong. But I find it sad that otherwise intelligent people can’t see that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes.