Read this terrible attempt by Mr. Bobbitt (former government official, now Professor of constitutional law at Texas University, Austin, of course... Jesus, it must be the weather..). This is an outstanding example of the balls these neo-cons have in operation in trying to sell an agenda to the people by resorting to a fair amount of nonsense, thereby steering away from the real issues by trying to sound 'intellectual'. Propaganda in its purest form.

"These are natural questions, but they are neither logical nor helpful. They are a prime example in our public discourse of what might be called "Parmenides' Fallacy" — named after the Greek philosopher who held that all change was illusion. This fallacy occurs when one tries to assess a future state of affairs by measuring it against the present, as opposed to comparing it to other possible futures. Let me give a famous example of Parmenides' Fallacy in operation. [what exactly is he talking about?]

The turning point in the 1980 presidential race came in a debate when Ronald Reagan criticized President Jimmy Carter's record by asking the American people, "Are you better off today than you were four years ago?"

While rhetorically devastating, this question is hardly the way to evaluate a presidency. After all, the state of the nation will never stay the same for four years, regardless of who is in office. A more relevant question to have asked would have been, "Are you better off now than you would have been if Gerald Ford had continued as president — and if he had had to cope with rising oil prices, a revolution in Iran, a Russian invasion of Afghanistan and soaring interest rates?""