This is circulating on the internet (thanks, Bobbie), so we checked it out (because occasionally somebody makes stuff up, duh), and apparently the following exchange took place in Orlanda, Fla., at one of El Presidente's let's-strangle-Social-Security-in-the-bathtub events, and as we are admirers of clear English, we thought we'd give the little man credit, when credit is so richly due:
Woman in audience: "I don't really understand. How is it the new [Social Security] plan is going to fix that [deficit] problem?"
President Bush: "Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculated, for example, is on the table. Whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to that has been promised. Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help -- on the red."
Left his secret transmitter earpiece at home that day? Audience screening missed a ringer, i.e., someone who asks a concise, direct question?
Revealing moment, when the Social Security Reformer-in-Chief doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Collusion? Rhymes with Confusion
Mike Allen reports in today's WashPost, "Within a day after President Bush taps a Supreme Court nominee, a conservative group with an $18 million budget for the confirmation fight plans to be on the air with a heartwarming ad featuring vintage photos of the candidate to try to cement a sympathetic portrait."
Riddle me this, Bunky: Doesn't that kind of plan require working with the White House well ahead of any announcement? We know media is quick quick quick these days, but even so, it takes more than 24 hours to produce a television ad, especially one "featuring vintage photos of the candidate." "Heart-warming" can take an additional full day! The White House's bringing in conservative shock troops ahead of time to feed them biographical info on their planned nominee also implies that those same conservative groups actually get a veto on any nominee they don't like ... not that El Presidente would EVER nominate anyone even slightly less anti-abortion than Rehnquist and Scalia.
Are we foolish to take even a smidgen of consolation that we're now two days removed from the end of the Supreme Court's session, and still no resignation announcements?
Riddle me this, Bunky: Doesn't that kind of plan require working with the White House well ahead of any announcement? We know media is quick quick quick these days, but even so, it takes more than 24 hours to produce a television ad, especially one "featuring vintage photos of the candidate." "Heart-warming" can take an additional full day! The White House's bringing in conservative shock troops ahead of time to feed them biographical info on their planned nominee also implies that those same conservative groups actually get a veto on any nominee they don't like ... not that El Presidente would EVER nominate anyone even slightly less anti-abortion than Rehnquist and Scalia.
Are we foolish to take even a smidgen of consolation that we're now two days removed from the end of the Supreme Court's session, and still no resignation announcements?
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Scripture of the Day
Matthew 23:24: "You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!"
News development of the day, straining-out-a-gnat department: "Within hours of yesterday's Supreme Court decision allowing a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, Christian groups announced a nationwide campaign to install similar displays in 100 cities and towns within a year." (WashPost, this a.m.)
Jesus continued, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like white-washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Matt. 23:27-28.
This lust for setting up graven images to god has nothing much to do with "preserving Christian heritage." It has everything to do with power. The group launching this 100-monuments-in-100-towns crusade is also the group that forced Congress to its weak knees over Terri Schiavo.
News development of the day, straining-out-a-gnat department: "Within hours of yesterday's Supreme Court decision allowing a Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Texas Capitol, Christian groups announced a nationwide campaign to install similar displays in 100 cities and towns within a year." (WashPost, this a.m.)
Jesus continued, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for you are like white-washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within they are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but within you are full of hypocrisy and iniquity." Matt. 23:27-28.
This lust for setting up graven images to god has nothing much to do with "preserving Christian heritage." It has everything to do with power. The group launching this 100-monuments-in-100-towns crusade is also the group that forced Congress to its weak knees over Terri Schiavo.
The Dead Will Not Applaud
With El Presidente in Ft. Bragg tonight to use the obedient military as pawns, the N&O has some bad news to greet him: "Our statewide poll shows a dip in Tar Heel support for the war -- and Bush's handling of it."
"42 percent of active voters agree the war has been worth it, but 49 percent say it has not." Notice the target group here as a possible predictor of future elections: they asked "active voters."
Wonder if those hundreds of hand-picked soldiers who will provide El Presidente his patriotic pep squad are to a man/woman convinced that their Commander-in-Chief is the same brilliant tactician he believes himself to be?
Wouldn't it be liberating if just one strong voice was heard to utter, "Mr. President, Sir, I was just wondering..."?
But ... not gonna happen.
"Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,
Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl."
--Richard Eberhart, "The Fury of Aerial Bombardment" (Eberhart was already 37 years old when the U.S. entered WWII, but he enlisted anyway in that just war and became a Navy gunnery instructor, training soldiers in the operation of the 50-caliber Browning automatic. Eberhart died a few days ago on June 9th, aged 101.)
"42 percent of active voters agree the war has been worth it, but 49 percent say it has not." Notice the target group here as a possible predictor of future elections: they asked "active voters."
Wonder if those hundreds of hand-picked soldiers who will provide El Presidente his patriotic pep squad are to a man/woman convinced that their Commander-in-Chief is the same brilliant tactician he believes himself to be?
Wouldn't it be liberating if just one strong voice was heard to utter, "Mr. President, Sir, I was just wondering..."?
But ... not gonna happen.
"Of Van Wettering I speak, and Averill,
Names on a list, whose faces I do not recall
But they are gone to early death, who late in school
Distinguished the belt feed lever from the belt holding pawl."
--Richard Eberhart, "The Fury of Aerial Bombardment" (Eberhart was already 37 years old when the U.S. entered WWII, but he enlisted anyway in that just war and became a Navy gunnery instructor, training soldiers in the operation of the 50-caliber Browning automatic. Eberhart died a few days ago on June 9th, aged 101.)
"I Think Continuously of Those Who Were Truly Great"
I can't stop thinking of e.e. cummings. Lines of his keep banging around in my noggin like marbles inside a plastic pumpkin. Lines like "when god lets my body be" and "all in green went my love riding" and (especially, since the Republicans passed their flag desecration Constitutional amendment last Thursday) "I will not kiss your fucking flag." Could be that the times we live in so closely mirror the times when e.e. cummings came to maturity, before and during World War I, when another set of greedy, self-righteous pricks had a death-grip on America, and e.e. cummings was so good at telling them off.
"What is precious is never to forget." That's not cummings. That's Stephen Spender, the brave Brit who volunteered on the side of the doomed Republic in the Spanish Civil War and who lived to tell the tale. That's Spender's line too that forms the title of this posting. I once rode in the backseat of a car chauffeuring Mr. Spender from Lubbock to Plainview, Texas, because my teacher at the time incorrectly thought I was the student most likely to carry on an intelligent conversation with the Famous Poet. He was wrong. Dead. Wrong. I shrank from that great, tall, impossibly robust man with the posh British accent. I wanted to be invisible. I made of my gangly West Texas farmboy bones the smallest parcel I could in the dusty cushions of that back seat and uttered nary a word for 75 painful miles.
"The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor."
But O Mr. Spender, you gave me words to light the darkness and to define a bravery I think we may be needing now as much as you needed it in 1936, taking up arms to defend the rights of a poor citizenry against Generalissimo Franco's fascists.
In 1822, Shelley, another fighter against unjust power, called poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world." That's a grand placard to hang on a bunch of impractical scribblers, now ain't it? But I'm beginning to see his point. Given the actual legislators this country has put in charge of our democratic futures, the poets I studied in my youth return their lines to me in my still-gangly sixth decade, and at this hour in our peculiar history those lines of poetic legislation come as some comfort. Others before us have confronted unreasoning pig-headedness and cruel self-righteousness. And despite the odds, they told the truth, sent forward to us latter-day sinners the bulletins to warm our hearts in adversity, to help us see clearly, to look up and rally together.
I thank god (which is the way cummings spelled His name) for e.e. cummings. And for the Brit Stephen Spender. And for a whole raft of other pains-in-the-ass, true blue, spit-in-your-eye Americans. I will keep you banging around my noggin while El Presidente struts his stuff at Ft. Bragg, all day Tuesday. I may quote poetry to my bean patch, even while the president tells lies to the nation. And beyond that, yes, for as long as it takes.
"What is precious is never to forget." That's not cummings. That's Stephen Spender, the brave Brit who volunteered on the side of the doomed Republic in the Spanish Civil War and who lived to tell the tale. That's Spender's line too that forms the title of this posting. I once rode in the backseat of a car chauffeuring Mr. Spender from Lubbock to Plainview, Texas, because my teacher at the time incorrectly thought I was the student most likely to carry on an intelligent conversation with the Famous Poet. He was wrong. Dead. Wrong. I shrank from that great, tall, impossibly robust man with the posh British accent. I wanted to be invisible. I made of my gangly West Texas farmboy bones the smallest parcel I could in the dusty cushions of that back seat and uttered nary a word for 75 painful miles.
"The names of those who in their lives fought for life
Who wore at their hearts the fire's center.
Born of the sun they traveled a short while towards the sun,
And left the vivid air signed with their honor."
But O Mr. Spender, you gave me words to light the darkness and to define a bravery I think we may be needing now as much as you needed it in 1936, taking up arms to defend the rights of a poor citizenry against Generalissimo Franco's fascists.
In 1822, Shelley, another fighter against unjust power, called poets "the unacknowledged legislators of the world." That's a grand placard to hang on a bunch of impractical scribblers, now ain't it? But I'm beginning to see his point. Given the actual legislators this country has put in charge of our democratic futures, the poets I studied in my youth return their lines to me in my still-gangly sixth decade, and at this hour in our peculiar history those lines of poetic legislation come as some comfort. Others before us have confronted unreasoning pig-headedness and cruel self-righteousness. And despite the odds, they told the truth, sent forward to us latter-day sinners the bulletins to warm our hearts in adversity, to help us see clearly, to look up and rally together.
I thank god (which is the way cummings spelled His name) for e.e. cummings. And for the Brit Stephen Spender. And for a whole raft of other pains-in-the-ass, true blue, spit-in-your-eye Americans. I will keep you banging around my noggin while El Presidente struts his stuff at Ft. Bragg, all day Tuesday. I may quote poetry to my bean patch, even while the president tells lies to the nation. And beyond that, yes, for as long as it takes.
Monday, June 27, 2005
It's Been a Long Day
"The tone [of El Presidente's 2nd term] has been too much of a permanent campaign. When you're the minority, you need to fight. When you're the governing majority, you need to produce." --Newt Gingrich, the former Republican House speaker and serial adulterer, quoted in today's NYTimes, complaining about the Karl-Rove-dominated White House.
"They thought because they had slain the Kerry dragon, they could claim a mandate and do what they wanted to. Now they have to sell things, whether it's Iraq or stem cells or John Bolton -- let alone Social Security -- on their own merits." --An unnamed "prominent Republican in Washington," also quoted in the same NYTimes article.
The only good reason we can think of to see another sunrise in the Land of the Perilously Free is that Chief Justice William Rehnquist did NOT announce his resignation today, thus NOT (just yet) setting in motion the machinery of Karl Rove's Permanent Campaign to demonize "lib-ruls" and send all Democrats to hell-fire.
Under even somewhat moderate Republican circumstances, as when El Presidente's father got to nominate a Supreme Court justice (Clarence Thomas, anyone?), we get supremely edgy, i.e., suicidal, about the future of The Republic. Our edginess in this season of Bush II reaches off-the-scale readings, since it's very clear what Karl Rove and all the other little Rovians have in mind for us: Numero Uno, they intend to make us, willy nilly, better friggin' Christians, 'cause we've been very, very bad, particularly women who have sex and men who love other men; and Numero Two-o, they intend to dismantle the federal government, regulatory agency by regulatory agency, starting with the Endangered Species Act and moving on to the really big white-bellied meat of Republican wet dreams, Social friggin' Security, so that all that apparatus that makes us soooo dependent on government to save us from this and that just simply ... goes away, so that when your odd oil company wants to drill off the coast of Whatever, there won't be any mechanism whatsoever by which your ordinary beach-goer or beach-enjoyer will have to stop the wholesale destruction of the environment for private profit. (Hell ... even the so-called "liberals" on the Supreme Court are getting into the act. They just ruled that a municipality can confiscate private property for the benefit of developers -- a terrible decision).
But we digress.
The people running this country right now want to make a religious icon out of the flag, intend to stifle dissent, wouldn't understand Christian charity if it smote them on the (other) cheek. They've got everything else. They want the courts too. And intend to have them.
How do we stop this? Our powder (45 sometimes skittish Dems in the U.S. Senate) ain't exactly dry. The American people are into reality TV, NOT reality. When Newt Gingrich is the best thing we've got going, why, oh why, did we wake up this morning?
"They thought because they had slain the Kerry dragon, they could claim a mandate and do what they wanted to. Now they have to sell things, whether it's Iraq or stem cells or John Bolton -- let alone Social Security -- on their own merits." --An unnamed "prominent Republican in Washington," also quoted in the same NYTimes article.
The only good reason we can think of to see another sunrise in the Land of the Perilously Free is that Chief Justice William Rehnquist did NOT announce his resignation today, thus NOT (just yet) setting in motion the machinery of Karl Rove's Permanent Campaign to demonize "lib-ruls" and send all Democrats to hell-fire.
Under even somewhat moderate Republican circumstances, as when El Presidente's father got to nominate a Supreme Court justice (Clarence Thomas, anyone?), we get supremely edgy, i.e., suicidal, about the future of The Republic. Our edginess in this season of Bush II reaches off-the-scale readings, since it's very clear what Karl Rove and all the other little Rovians have in mind for us: Numero Uno, they intend to make us, willy nilly, better friggin' Christians, 'cause we've been very, very bad, particularly women who have sex and men who love other men; and Numero Two-o, they intend to dismantle the federal government, regulatory agency by regulatory agency, starting with the Endangered Species Act and moving on to the really big white-bellied meat of Republican wet dreams, Social friggin' Security, so that all that apparatus that makes us soooo dependent on government to save us from this and that just simply ... goes away, so that when your odd oil company wants to drill off the coast of Whatever, there won't be any mechanism whatsoever by which your ordinary beach-goer or beach-enjoyer will have to stop the wholesale destruction of the environment for private profit. (Hell ... even the so-called "liberals" on the Supreme Court are getting into the act. They just ruled that a municipality can confiscate private property for the benefit of developers -- a terrible decision).
But we digress.
The people running this country right now want to make a religious icon out of the flag, intend to stifle dissent, wouldn't understand Christian charity if it smote them on the (other) cheek. They've got everything else. They want the courts too. And intend to have them.
How do we stop this? Our powder (45 sometimes skittish Dems in the U.S. Senate) ain't exactly dry. The American people are into reality TV, NOT reality. When Newt Gingrich is the best thing we've got going, why, oh why, did we wake up this morning?
Jerry Meek Wants Us Talking About God
See Jerry Meek's blog (scroll down) for advice that Democrats go ahead and 'fess up that they go to church too, that they have faith and values, yadda yadda yadda.
Coming off the High Holy Days of last week's great pagan observation of the Summer Solstice, we're still trying to clear our noggins from the herbal-tea-induced semi-coma brought on by too much Mother Earth love. But we're looking for our old Baptist hymnal. It's in that closet somewhere, with several other alarming skeletons. Already have my King James Version at hand, where it always is. Can't get through a day without checking up on El Presidente's interpretation of Our Man Jesus, since El Presidente is given to (ah) liberal misuse of The Word, particularly in respect to Rich Men and War-Mongering.
Coming off the High Holy Days of last week's great pagan observation of the Summer Solstice, we're still trying to clear our noggins from the herbal-tea-induced semi-coma brought on by too much Mother Earth love. But we're looking for our old Baptist hymnal. It's in that closet somewhere, with several other alarming skeletons. Already have my King James Version at hand, where it always is. Can't get through a day without checking up on El Presidente's interpretation of Our Man Jesus, since El Presidente is given to (ah) liberal misuse of The Word, particularly in respect to Rich Men and War-Mongering.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
From the Folks Who Brought You WMD...
...the great Mad Cow Disease Coverup.
A test that was conducted seven months ago to determine that a second cow in the U.S. had died of Mad Cow Disease has only just now been pried into the light.
The Bush administration is denying "cover up." But c'mon.
A test that was conducted seven months ago to determine that a second cow in the U.S. had died of Mad Cow Disease has only just now been pried into the light.
The Bush administration is denying "cover up." But c'mon.
El Presidente at Ft. Bragg Tuesday Night
George W. Bush has decided to come where men are guaranteed to salute an immovable stump ... for his Tuesday night address to the nation in prime time ... not to admit to anything that every last one of us knows is the truth but to buck us up for War Without End Amen.
Jerry Meek, the state Democratic chairman, is quoted in today's N&O, saying of El Presidente, "I hope for once he will be honest with the American people about what led us to war and about the planning, or lack thereof, that was done and on how we are going to get out of the mess he created." By which he meant, "The little sonovabitch has SOME gall coming to North Carolina to ladle out the pabulum!"
Anyway, you can decide for yourself how best to spend Tuesday, but there IS a big peace protest scheduled that day in downtown Fayetteville.
Jerry Meek, the state Democratic chairman, is quoted in today's N&O, saying of El Presidente, "I hope for once he will be honest with the American people about what led us to war and about the planning, or lack thereof, that was done and on how we are going to get out of the mess he created." By which he meant, "The little sonovabitch has SOME gall coming to North Carolina to ladle out the pabulum!"
Anyway, you can decide for yourself how best to spend Tuesday, but there IS a big peace protest scheduled that day in downtown Fayetteville.
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