Taking a cue from the King of Made-Up Reality, George W. Bush, the GOP and their candidates have unleashed an alternate reality that they want all Americans to believe.

King George has spent the last 8 years not listening to reality. According to Bush, the economy is fine, Iraq was the best place to target terrorism, nepotism makes for the best government, drilling for off shore oil will bring gas prices down immediately, and massive debt is what future generations of Americans really want and need.

GOP heir-apparent John McCain has so much trouble with the truth that he hasn’t spoken realistically for months. According to McCain, the middle class consists of people who make about $250,000 a year, being a maverick means bucking the party line as much as 10% of the time, POW and POTUS are really interchangable, and his VP choice is someone who hates earmarks as much as he claims to.

The newest member of the GOP glamour gang is Sarah Palin who wouldn’t know reality if it bit her in the knee. According to Palin, abstinance education really works and is the only method worth teaching, God rejoices over pipelines, and that shooting animals from an airplane is the only sporting way to hunt for your trophies.

SEE NO REALITY.  HEAR NO REALITY.  SPEAK NO REALITY.

Better yet…just make up your own reality and repeat it over and over and over again.

You want reality? Here is the reality that the 21st century GOP has brought to America.

Iraq War…torture…gross mismanagement of funds…record deficits…corporate malfeasance…Dick Cheney…Katrina…cronyism…Donald Rumsfeld…economic meltdown…anti-science…politicization of government agencies…Terry Schiavo fiasco…Alberto Gonzales…high unemployment…outsourcing to mercenaries…swiftboating of politics…Iranian nukes…tension with Russia…John Ashcroft…Walter Reed Medical Center…domestic spying…massive future debt…Condi Rice…bankrupted state treasuries…national security theater…Samuel Alito…billions of dollars sent to Pakistan and nothing to show for it…bin Laden still at large…skyrocketing energy costs…widening income gap between rich and poor…Harriet Myers…suspended endangered species act…denial of environmental crisis…The Bridge To Nowhere…foreign distrust…falling dollar value…Karl Rove…tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans…nuclear proliferation…biggest expansion of government in generations and nothing to show for it…Tom DeLay…attorneygate…power to the lobbyists…religious disharmony…

And that’s just the “easy to identify” list. Some say reality is what you make it. This is the reality that the GOP has made in America. Is this the reality you want for another four years or more?

McCain/Palin are now promising change. They lie. The only change they seek is more regressive social and economic policies for Americans. The only change they desire is more debt and war and religiously based laws. The only change we can count on from them is even more government bullying and lies. That is the reality they can promise and that you can expect from the GOP.

If reality really is what we make it, it’s time for a new reality.

(cross posted at Bring It On!)