Stuck in a small space with a Bush voter

On one of my flights back from South Carolina, my seatmate was a very angry, arrogant man who told me--among many other things--that during the presidential election, he was frightened because he and his wife were the only two people in their neighborhood who voted for Bush. He said he was afraid to put signs up in his yard. I told him I was pretty sure we were in the extreme minority (and maybe the only people) in our neighborhood who didn't vote for Bush, and we had a long-standing habit of putting election signs of any kind up in the trees where they couldn't be stolen. At that point, I attempted to have a conversation about how wrong it is for anyone to steal election signs, and that I believed citizenship had to come first if we were going to live together. He offered me weak agreement, barely acknowledging me, because now he saw me as The Enemy. I understood, for I saw him the same way.

"They (the neighbors) kept saying 'Bush is a liar, he's a liar'," my seatmate told me. I smiled and nodded, and wondered, as I have wondered many times, how a reasonably intelligent person could be blind to the really obvious fact that Bush is a world-class liar. If you need a quick review, here is the summary from The Poor Man:

He has lied about his time in the National Guard, and lied about his criminal history. He lied about his relationship with Ken Lay, he lied about who would benefit from his tax cuts, and he lied about stem cells. He lied about his visit to Bob Jones University, he lied about why he wouldn't meet with Log Cabin Republicans, and he lied about reading the EPA report on global warming. He lied about blaming the Clinton administration for the second intifada, he lies constantly about how he pays no attention to polls, he lied about how he loves New York, and he lied about moving the US embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. He lied about finding WMD in Iraq, he lied about making his decision to go to war, he lied about the CIA's dismissal of the yellowcake rumors, and he lied about the IAEA's assessment of Iraq's nuclear program. He lied about funding the fight against AIDS in Africa, he lied about when the recession started, and he lied about seeing the first plane hit the WTC. He lied about supporting the Patient Protection Act, and he lied about his deficit spending.

To that I will add that he lied about lowering carbon dioxide emisson standards and he lied about lowering lead standards.

Mr. HotShot in the next seat certainly didn't appear to be a right-wing Christian, but he did have very big concerns about national security and about bypassing the United Nations. I had Richard Clarke's book in my carry-on bag and wanted to gag and bind this man and read it aloud to him.