Blinky's Secret Weapon – Common Sense

Well, I'm out of Hongpong retirement just in time to cover Blinky McFibber's state of the fiefdom address. His involuntary twitches subdued by massive doses of thorazine and the blood of Pakistani civilians, Chimpy took to the stage tonight and...

Gave one of the best addresses of his Presidency – no joke.

Now, I am not jumping on the (imaginary) Re-Ascendant Presidency bandwagon, I'm just telling the truth; tonight's address, in both content and delivery, was amongst the best of the Bush Administration, a massive improvement over the sputtering "Armies of Compassion" speech of last year. Now, lest you hyenas leap upon fresh meat, let me add my list of qualifications to accompany the Best Bush Speech Ever classification:

1. Obviously, George W. Bush is the worst orator to occupy the White House since the advent of broadcast media
2. The budget will be the test of his resolve in accomplishing the goals he set out tonight, not the rhetoric used in the address
3. He did utter the words "human-animal hybrid" and no, I have no idea what that means, either – werewolves? goatboy? Robin Williams? (high hat)
4. The Wars on Drugs, Homos and the social safety net were evident
5. He is a lying, cheating sack of crap who blew noxious gas up my skirt about why he is snooping on American citizens

All that being said, however, there were some significant developments tonight:

1. A new use for old mispronunciations – nukular power? I thought them nukules were just fer bombing Russkies and Arabs. You mean to tell me that this technology, which we have poured trillions into the development process of in order to gain the crucial capacity to explode the world seven hundred and eleventy million times can be harnessed safely, cheaply and without any sort of hydrocarbon emissions? What? Other countries use it almost exclusively and without incident for the better part of sixty years? Fuck me...
2. A chicken in every pot, a Mexican cooking it in every kitchen – they're here, they're in fear, and they sure as shit aren't going anywhere. By bowing to logic (crazy, huh?) Bush pulls out a tough pill for his own party to swallow and presents the first progressive labor and immigration I've heard in a long time. In a speech here in Tucson several months ago, he actually said that illegal immigrants are "doing jobs normal Americans just will not do" – snap. Tonight he says that the economy doesn't function without them. Big duh, but find me other legislators saying the same.
3. Initiatives Clunkily Named in the Title Department – Whatever his innovation initiative is, and no matter how half-hearted a gesture it is, bring it on, because American high school grads can hardly count on their fingers. India, people, India – these people are NOT bad at math, and they DO want your job.
4. Speak for yourself, crack's more my thing – "America is addicted to oil" was another gem merely for its being uttered. There will be nothing done to change this savage truth, but I thought I detected some crap about 2025 and electric space cars. Methinks Fearless Leader has been watching "Back to the Future II" again. Think he calls the Ayatollah "Biff" behind closed doors?

OK, Dan's talking in my ear, so this is getting posted now without any further ado...

Dan's grumble about the State of the Union

Ok well it's the State of the Union today and people will probably deflect Bush's sweeping unpopularity by claiming yet again that the election is over so why bother complaining? This is of course a sly dodge that must be stopped cold.

Once upon a time (summer 2004) I was back in Hudson with my crew and Bush came to town. We hung around downtown as the crowds massed up. The buses came through, and suddenly, below the "Hudson, WIS" archway by the river, there was the man himself with his sweaty blue sleeves rolled up. We could see him from one block away on the public main street. (pic via MPR)

Then it occurred to me. Bush is just one little man down there. All these terrible things that are happening could not possibly be because of him. He's just the point man on a vast and corrupt bureaucracy -- and yes, far more corrupt than Democrats ever were. They are very good at covering up their staggering incompetence -- in fact, it seems to be the only thing they are good at. Brownie's Heckuva Job is really the standard. Political campaign hacks out of their depth, suppressing uncomfortable truths. Like for example how NASA wouldn't let one of their scientists talk about global warming. That wasn't Bush's fault directly - it's a toxic bureaucracy.

It occurred to me on this summer day that the county dump trucks blocking the road (that the campaign didn't reimburse us for) were now County Dump Trucks in the War on Terror. With Bush here, theoretically the core of the war itself was actually in front of us. So the security bubble around him must be the hardest, most impenetrable sphere of security.

However, my sister and a couple friends found all this stuff objectionable on their home turf and they were upset they couldn't go see the speech. At the security line a couple blocks north of the riverfront rally, they jumped into the woods when the sheriff wasn't looking. They cut through the trees and one of them climbed up the trees to spot the law enforcement, so they could avoid them. They got to the riverfront beach a block north of the speech site. With Bush's ramblings spilling through the air, they crawled across the beach, as federal agents in boats failed to see them. They made it to the beach-house, **halfway** through the security perimeter. Finally, there they gave up and walked away and a cop chastised them and tossed them out.

If they'd hidden a rocket launcher or something in the beach-house, the stage would have been well within range. They got literally halfway through this, the strongest of all perimeters. It wasn't Bush's fault, it's that the Administration is staggeringly incompetent, even at physically protecting the leader, let alone the rest of us. And the media ought to cover it that way.

Liberal folks way too often make the mistake of assigning to Bush the Person all the many failures and murderous pathologies that are actually systemic - and systematically covered up for political expediency. The insanity of the military-industrial complex is not really led by Bush at all - it's beyond his control, or Congress' - but he does set the cues for it. So make sure to get the jabs in there for our disintegrating system of government. Addressing the stomping of the Constitution is way more important than assigning all these problems to Bush's insane yet ultimately meaningless personality traits. (and he is mentally damaged by booze or otherwise troubled by invisible demons I kind of believe)

Put the 'Administration' back in Bush.
-Dan

PS: Dick Cheney somehow has his own personal National Security Council. That is an example of how they are setting up alternative, hidden command & decision-making structures (that helped spoof the intelligence to get the war started, among other things). This is the Office of Special Plans presidency.
http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/talking_politics/documents/00422450.htm
http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/01/12_405.html
http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Special_Plans