The country that elected George Bush — sort of-is getting its comeuppance

[kpete]

George Speaks, Badly
By GAIL COLLINS
Published: March 15, 2008

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The country that elected George Bush — sort of — because he seemed like he’d be more fun to have a beer with than Al Gore or John Kerry is really getting its comeuppance. Our credit markets are foundering, and all we’ve got is a guy who looks like he’s ready to kick back and start the weekend.

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The president squinched his face and bit his lip and seemed too antsy to stand still. As he searched for the name of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia ("the king, uh, the king of Saudi") and made guy-fun of one of the questioners ("Who picked Gigot?"), you had to wonder what the international financial community makes of a country whose president could show up to talk economics in the middle of a liquidity crisis and kind of flop around the stage as if he was emcee at the Iowa Republican Pig Roast.

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But wait — more positive news! The secretary of Housing and Urban Development is proposing that lenders supply an easy-to-read summary with mortgage agreements. “You know, these mortgages can be pretty frightening to people. I mean, there’s a lot of tiny print,” the president said.

Really, if he can’t fix the economy, the least he could do is rehearse the speech.

more at:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/opinion/15collins.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

[wilt the stilt]

1. Gail is right

I have been in sales for 30 years. One of the most important ingredients in being a successful president is being a very good salesman. Clinton had it and Reagan really had it. The 3 that come to mind that didn't have it were Bush 1, Carter and the absolute worst is *. This guy would be the electronics manager at WalMart if his name wasn't Bush. On second thought the stock boy at WalMart

[Berry Cool]

3. Well, you have to be engaging, and you have to care about what you have to sell.

Lil' Georgie's the kind of guy who, as a manager, you'd look for out on the sales floor and he'd be nowhere to be found. Eventually you'd find him back in the stockroom, screwing around with the other staff and messing up the merchandise in the process.

You'd yell at him and the rest of the guys to quit fooling around and get out on the floor and interact with some customers, and they'd all make eyes at each other and sheepish faces at you and say "All right" and shuffle out there looking like death warmed over.

No one who came in your store would want to buy anything because if they asked a question of George or anyone else, the answer would be "I dunno." The guys would be far more interested in playing practical jokes on each other than on selling anything.

Eventually you'd give up and fire the whole lot of them, muttering "This is the last time I hire people's kids or younger brothers just because their dad or their older brother tells me they desperately need a job!"

[Frank Cannon]

5. What you said. Exactly.

I honestly don't think George Bush has the skills to do any "job" whatsoever. Because he just doesn't give a rat's ass about anything, and he makes sure you know it.

[fasttense]

2. Eloquent speech is a necessary trait of a con artist.

the bush use to have it, if you look back before he stole the election. Now he knows anyone with half a brain has seen the reveal of his con. So he doesn't have to try anymore. He's just going through the motions stealing what he can of our nations wealth and the marks, called American citizens, can't do anything about it.

Welcome to the United States of Amway.

[kentuck]

4. And the world does not hate America...

They do hate our government and our leaders.

[tanyev]

6. "It's clearly a budget. It's got a lot of numbers in it."

He's starting to recycle his own incoherent babble.

[cloudythescribbler]

7. This kind of "punishment of America" nonsense is offensive, INCLUDING from Gail Collins ...

There are many people (especially red-headed league type copperhead/creep counterfeit "progressives") who follow this kind of logic, sometimes coupled with a "get it?" verbal maraschino cherry on top. It is utterly repugnant, and although it sounds so moderate and mainstream coming from the NY Times op ed page it is really the same kind of crap we see from those with at least much greater PRETENSIONS to be radical. I know that sometimes it is tempting, as Chomsky indulges with his emphasis on the 'unclean hands' of "America" in the wake of 9/11, but it is still fatuous reasoning and a perverse kind of collective guilt.

I am an American. "Never mind who killed the Kennedys, for after all it was you and me?" BULLSHIT. I didn't do it. I didn't agree to send troops into either Vietnam or Iraq. I marched against imperialism and will continue to oppose it in whatever ways I can most effectively. I try to vote for the candidate, of those with a chance, for the one most likely to move the country to a more humanitarian rather than imperialistic stance. Collective blame, among other things, levels the moral distinctions that exist between the Pentagon 'Americans' and Abbie Hoffman as an American, to the advantage of the former and the disadvantage of the latter.

It is really just a short step away from the logic of those who, echoing religious nonsense about 'original sin', try to blame "humanity" or "human nature" as a whole for the ills that are faced. As I have said many times before, human nature is what your mother, Mahatma Gandhi, Joseph Stalin, Mother Theresa, Adolf Hitler, Martin Luther King Jr., Arundhati Roy, and everyone you have ever met (and their mothers and fathers) as well as everyone else HAVE IN COMMON. But what matters as far as human survival and civilization are the DIFFERENCES among all these people, not the fact that 'well, everybody has an asshole'.