Liars for Bush (and Rush)

I listened to the podcast of episode #145 of Real Time with Bill Maher earlier today. One of the guests was Andrew Breitbart. Virtually everything he said was bullshit.

But he made two particular bullshit claims that I feel compelled to respond to.

1. Rush Limbaugh doesn't have a history of making racist remarks.

Characterizing opposition to South African apartheid as a communist plot and an attempt to get blacks to vote for Democrats is just a tad bit racist, in my book.

2. George W. Bush's presidential bioethics council was full of secular humanists.

Not in this universe. The council was stacked with enough conservative Christians and neoconservatives to be able to generate "advice" that served to promote the religious and ideological beliefs of President Bush rather than to consider the ethics of applied advances in particular areas of science: this is the complete and utter opposite of a secular humanist approach. And one of the only three biomedical scientists on the council was replaced, along with another member, when they failed to agree with the administration's ideological positions.

Using Google you can find plenty on the subject, but this old post from Carl Zimmer covers the topic probably as well as you'll be able to find.

For more on the absurdity of Breitbart's alternate reality views, see Sadly No!.