CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
So.
Yesterday the president addressed some questions about the unfortunate hunting accident. Or, as I like to say, "You know Dick Cheney? He shot a dude." I think one of the president's comments illustrates a lot about the complete absence of honest political dialogue from this administration and, really, all of Washington's big players.
Allow me to digress and set the stage. According to published reports (please don't be mean and make me go find them!), then-Governor Bush and Karl Rove got together and addressed the issue of why the elder President Bush wasn't re-elected. While they probably came up with more than one reason, the public perception of the elder Bush as a weak leader became their focus. Karl Rove hatched a strategy titled (literally!) "Strong Leader."
In retrospect, this wasn't an election strategy but an advertising campaign. It has all the substance and complexity of a toothpaste promotion. In some ways, the president is a strong leader, but this is silly. Listen to the rhetoric of the president and his minions when they deploy their talking points and check for the buzzwords: "strong," "powerful," "forceful," etc... This is worse than baby food or Teletubbies. This is a key part of how they gained this office.
It's gotten to the point where the advertising of "strong leader" is rote for the president and his cohorts. Any answer to any question uses language to depict and reveal metaphors of strength. Ask them if a policy is good and they'll say it's powerful. Ask them who made a decision and they say it drew from the strengths across the administration. They're not lying, they don't care what they reveal as long as you think the president is strong because of it.
Now consider this quote from an official White House transcript of the President's remarks (this is the complete response to a question about how the VP handled the disclosure of the event):
And so I thought his explanation yesterday was a very strong and powerful explanation, and I'm satisfied with the explanation he gave.
I've been steaming about a proposal the President made recently. I've always suspected that the fool and his supporters think that every problem in American life can be solved by a tax cut.
Dig this: His health care reform proposal is to increase and expand health care savings accounts, the tax shelters where one can squirrel away income, tax-free, for use in paying medical bills.
Obviously, this is a great solution to the 40 million or so Americans without health insurance. The problem isn't that they can't afford health insurance, but that the tax breaks just weren't adequate... This may be the most aggressively insensitive and selfish proposal yet from this bunch. The financial services industry would benefit with increased management fees from the assets in these accounts, the wealthy citizens who save in the accounts would see additional reductions in taxes and high-end medical services would thrive (Denver, I once read, needs two MRI devices to serve its needs--we have 14 in this city).
How does this help the poor and the marginally employed? The favorite example would be the Wal-Mart worker making $8-10 an hour. Throw in a divorce and a child and ask how she is supposed to pay for health insurance that can run to hundreds of dollars a month? With a tax shelter for money she can't set aside?
It's true. This President really thinks tax cuts are the only solution needed in life...
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
CDs listened to today:
