Appropriately enough, I was in another country (hint: it adjoins the U.S. and it isn't Canada) when Bush gave his SOTU speech. That's as good an excuse as any for missing the thing. Those of you who actually tortured your eyeballs and eardrums with the pronouncements of Fearless Leader must now feel a little envy. Admit it: Don't you wish that you had spent those long, long minutes in the far more profitable pursuit of nursing a tequila in a wonderfully wretched dive straight out of a Sam Peckinpah classic...?
Joshua Marshall's revelation that can't watch these Bush SOTUs anymore frees me to confess same. Is it just party loyalty that made Clinton's orations seem so compelling to me, or did he have the kind of natural talent that forces an audience -- even a hostile audience -- to pay attention?
Dubya has no talent as a speaker -- none whatsoever. Of all the presidents in the media age, three somehow achieved the office even though they could never out-talk a bowl of Rice Krispies: Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, and George W. Bush. (Does anyone else out there recall the Ford-Carter debates, the most excruciating hours in American political history?)
I'm told that tonight's speech included the line: "We need to direct our children in love." This quotation fits a pattern first noted in the course of the 2000 debates: Dubya loves "love." He feels compelled to stick that word into many public utterances -- and he even uses it in contexts that make "love" sound downright creepy. Didn't he once say something about OB-GYNs who "practice their love" with patients?
Every time he speaks of love, his voice fluctuates a bit, making the sentiment seem forced. I suspect Rove has given his marionette a directive to mention "love" at least once in each major speech -- a decision which may have something to do with abstruse theories of neurolingustic programming.
I was surprised to learn, upon re-entering the Land of the Free, that Cindy Sheehan was arrested -- in a building topped by a statue named Freedom -- for the "crime" of wearing a shirt someone considered inappropriate. I can't wait to see a citation of the exact statute she supposedly broke.
Ah well. If they ruin this country, there are others. No se puede vivir sin amar, mes amigos...
6 comments:
Ew. You would have to take my brain back to that hurty place it was catapulted into the last time Bush made really inappropriate use of the term "love."
Just out of curiosity, as I didn't do that much searching for it on the brief clips I saw, did anyone else catch any signs of The Prompter last night? And was it my imagination, or were cameras a little more strategically placed this year to try to cut down on possible Prompter sightings?
How did you like Caspar Milquetoast's response to the SOTU? What we needed was Jack Murtha breathing fire. What we got was Michael Dukakis redux.
(hint" it adjoins the U.S. and it isn't Canada)
Dude, you were in Eye-rack? Wow!
I agree we've had more than our fair share of lousy orators, but this guy takes the cake: the smirking triumphalism, the self-interested religiosity, the lies so brazen they're post-modern, the inane and dysfunctional speech patterns, the ludicrous Gun Smoke drawl, the rattle-snake eyes -- wholly shit, the guy is a cross-section of everything phony and contemptible in American life today, from Newt Gingrich to the Marlboro Man.
The fact that 42% of the public approves of the job this criminal is doing is the saddest statistic on earth....
Thank the American media.
To anon 10:30AM: you hit the nail on the head with your excellent description of our fearless leader. Thank you for your post, you write well. Bush is the conservative right's sock puppet driven by Carl Rove.
It is incredible how ignorant (and gullible) the voters at large are. If you get a chance after you finish watching "Enron: the smartest guys in the room", (my last suggestion) buy a copy of "Red State Road Trip" that was produced by Truth Out (every purchase helps support the www.truthout.org website), and seeing how dumb and uneducated and ignorant and biased these red state yahoos are. These uninformed but well intentioned red state folks make you want to simply pack up and leave this country. (the waitress has a good heart even though the reason she voted for Bush was because "he is right with God" which makes you sick and "I stand behind my President".)
Here is the link for "red state road trip": Take a journey across Middle America to see what the country really thinks about George W. Bush.
you can see a sample of it at:
http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm
To: Joseph
enjoy your well deserved vacation.
anon from SF
(Hey the vote was closer than 62 to 38, it turned out to be 58 against and 42 against--maybe the fuss about doing a filibuster had a positive effect and resulted in fewer spineless Dems voting to confirm alito--but I still have a sick feeling this country won't have a democracy much longer, what's left of it.)
So, no Prompter? Darn. I would have looked more thoroughly myself, but watching Bush talk gives me migraines.
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