George W. Bush, Master Orator

George Bush gave an extemporaneous, 75 minute speech yesterday. I honestly can't imagine having to hear this man spew lies and butcher the English language for that long in any context...but doing so off-the-cuff? Brutal...

Bush gave an intriguing description about what happens when businesses expand, as was the case here at a company run by a woman.

"You know, when you give a man more money in his pocket - in this case, a woman - more money in her pocket to expand a business, they build new buildings. And when somebody builds a new building, somebody has got to come and build the building.

"And when the building expanded, it prevented (sic) additional opportunities for people to work. Tax cuts matter. I'm going to spend some time talking about it," the president said.

He's really trying to simply restate the standard supply-side line about giving tax cuts to rich people to stimulate the economy. I love how direct he's being about it here, though. You usually hear Republicans play this game using the example of small business owners, so it sounds like they give a shit about regular, everyday, non-millionaires. (They don't.) Bush just goes ahead and uses the example of an already-rich person.

"If you own eight buildings, and I give you some more money, then you could buy a ninth building. And hey, who among us doesn't love buildings?"

Of course, there's also the matter of the President of our goddamn country discussing fiscal policy as if he were addressing an elementary school class...but I'm sure this is how it was explained to him, so it's hard to fault the guy.

He offered a pointed description of his job.

"My job is a decision-making job. And as a result, I make a lot of decisions," the president said.

Oh, not this Decider crap again. The guy doesn't realize we're still making fun of him for the last time he boasted about decision-making? A LOT of people make decisions for a living. I MAKE DECISIONS FOR A LIVING! They're not as important as George W. Bush's of course. If I link to a website with inferior information, thousands of Iraqi children aren't violently killed. But still, the mere act of deciding stuff seems to get George W. Bush in a state of near-ecstatic euphoria. It's not really that exciting.

"I delegate to good people. I always tell Condi Rice, `I want to remind you, Madam Secretary, who has the Ph.D. and who was the C student. And I want to remind you who the adviser is and who the president is.'"

No matter how we want to, pal, no one can forget you're a President OR a C student.

"I got a lot of Ph.D.-types and smart people around me who come into the Oval Office and say, `Mr. President, here's what's on my mind.' And I listen carefully to their advice. But having gathered the device (sic), I decide, you know, I say, `This is what we're going to do.' And it's `Yes, sir, Mr. President.' And then we get after it, implement policy."

Who the fuck says "Ph.D.-types"? You either have a Ph.D. or you don't.

And let's take a look at some of those great minds with whom the President has associated lo these past six years...


I'm sorry, I don't have the paper in front of me, but I do not recall Albert Gonzales being very smart...You'll have to let me get back to you on that question.


She doesn't just look creepy and insane in this photo; Harriet actually kind of looks lobotomized. Or like her entire brain has been removed via the back of her skull and George is admiring the empty cavity. "Yeah, I bet I could store up all my loose change in there, then take 'er down to one o' them Ralph's machines and get me a 10 dollar bill. That'd be nice."


Snowjob may be the smartest guy on this list, just talking raw intelligence. Just look what he's wrote about President Bush!

"The English Language has become a minefield for the man, whose malaprops make him the political heir not of Ronald Reagan, but Norm Crosby.”

Face.


Heckuva job, Brownie


This is Douglas Feith, whom Tommy Franks once memorably called "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."

I think you all see where I'm going with this...Let's move on.

"I'll be glad to answer some questions from you if you got any," he said. "If not, I can keep on blowing hot air until the time runs out."

Admitting that you're wasting time and peddling a lot of bullshit doesn't really make it any better. It just means that you're aware you have nothing to say and are wasting everyone's valuable time, but you're too arrogant to just shut the hell up and let them go home.

Asked about global warming, he gave a lengthy account of alternative fuels.

"I'm not quite through," he said near the end. "And it's a long answer, I'm sorry. It's called filibustering."

I think he thought that this was kind of a funny, affable thing to say. A little self-deprecating humor. That's because Bush is too stupid to realize, EVEN IN 2007, the importance of global warming as an issue to Americans. They don't want to be filibustered. They actually want him to do something about it.

It's kind of like Jon Stewart was trying to tell Chris Matthews the other day. Guys like Bush and Matthews think that, when you get right down to it, all Americans want is a nice speech and a good story, and if you give them that, they'll stay with you forever. (I had a grad school class at USC, and the professor clearly believed the same thing. He talked for hours about piddling little crap like presidential haircuts and make-up and stump speeches and rhetoric as if it mattered.)

Bush keeps doing the down-home compassionate cowboy schtick that almost won the 2000 Election for him, but pathetically doesn't realize it hasn't worked for years, that the only reason he's even still in office is that most individual citizens lack the time or resources to force their elected officials to begin impeachment proceedings.

He had some fun with a woman who seemed slow on the draw when Bush called on her.

"You want a little chance to collect the thoughts, you know? I mean we're talking national TV here, you know?" he said.

"I actually wrote it down so I wouldn't get flustered," the woman said.

"It didn't work," Bush said.

You just know that was said with that crooked smirk/snarl, to denote maximum bullying aggression. What a dick.