Lying liars

Kevin Drum quotes conservative Bruce Bartlett rather approvingly as follows:

My own excuse for not predicting the disaster that Bush's presidency has been is that I simply didn't believe a word he said during the 2000 campaign. I assumed that every word out of his mouth had been put there by Karl Rove and it was all based on polling and focus groups. I knew that Bush is a bit of a dim bulb, so it never occurred to me that he actually had any ideas of his own.

....My point is that it is very easy to get cynical about politics and think it is all a game. That was the mistake I made in 2000, along with lots of other people. If we don't want to make the same mistake again, all of us who comment on politics need to pay closer attention to what these guys are saying and make some allowance for the possibility that they actually believe it.

I'm afraid I can't agree. If you listened to what Bush said in 2000 and believed it you might well have decided to vote for him. THAT was the problem. Remember "Compassionate conservatism?"In fact, you needed to listen closely to what he said and who he said what to.
You needed to note that almost everything that came out of his mouth was spin and lies. When he quoted facts, he quoted fake facts. When he talked to one group, he said the opposite of what he said when he spoke to another group. It was all lies. That's what those of us who really listened to him learned then. Bartlett learned it too, but conservatives apparently like liars. That's why Bartlett went for Bush.