I’ve reached that age when the political give and take has a certain dreary sameness over the years; when it becomes clear that many a partisan excuses faults in what he believes to be “his side” while condemning the same in “the other side”. Long term memory is a terrible thing in a political junkie. 

But there is something new under my sun – the desire for Bush to confess and recant his mistakes. Torquemada had less fervor than his modern brethren who demand with self-righteousness that Bush admit his mistakes — although his direct methods were clearly worse than their Chinese verbal torture. I can’t recall such a demand in the last, oh, thirty years. Not even of Jimmy Carter, the man of a thousand mistakes, both large and small. 

Of course all Presidents make mistakes. I wish Bush would repudiate his signature of McCain Feingold’s ruinous law, but that ain’t gonna happen. Even Reagan, now so beloved of the Democrats despite their spittle at the time, made his fair share of mistakes.

Please spare me the faux pleadings of how you only want Bush to learn from his mistakes when it’s clear that you only want to beat him upside the head with any admission of mistake.

Tags: George Bush

In my city, negative advertising from the political campaigns is percolating down to the children.

Isabel has a little friend Paulina from down the street, who goes to a different school. Yesterday morning we heard that most of her friends would like to vote for John Kerry. Why? “Paulina says that George Bush is going to put everybody on fire.”

Um – are you sure she didn’t say “set everybody on fire?” “No – George Bush is going to put everybody on fire.” I thought I was well-informed, but I had never heard of this development!

This claim was a little easier to refute than last week’s claim. “Honey, do you know that George Bush has been president for four years?” “Yes, Dada.” “Well, if George Bush really wanted to put everybody on fire, he probably would have done it already. So I don’t think the story is correct.”

I’ll admit that my logic was not air-tight. President Bush knows that putting everybody on fire would most likely encounter some political resistance. Maybe he’s waiting until his second term to implement this dastardly plan, when he’s not facing re-election. Yeah, that’s it.

I still can’t figure out what led to this claim. Did some parent say that Bush the war-monger is going to leave the world in flames? Is he going to make everybody mad? Is he going to “light the fire” of some evangelistic crusade? Your guess is as good as mine.

Talk about conspiracy theories! You heard it here first.

Tags: George Bush

After School Night For Scouting and Open House at school I was too tired to take on Andariel, so I watched TV instead while I unloaded the dishwasher. I didn’t get home until about 9:20, so when I flipped on the TV President Bush was in the middle of the domestic laundry list. He was taking about partial privatization of Social Security, which made me simultaneously think “Amen, brother!” and “Quit talking about it and do something about it.” 

I hate that State of the Union Style speech — promises mixed with applause — so I flipped over to the ballgame. No, not the Rams losing to the Raiders (I bet Dodd’s happy), the Cardinals stomping on the Padres again (oh yeah, the Cardinals sure did look “beatable”). I was happy my wife and son got to see a good game, but I was surprised when they got home at about 9:35 — I thought it would be closer to 10. So after I got my sons take on the game and he went off to bed, we flipped back to the President and got to the good part.

I thought he did a fine job – he poked fun at himself, always a plus for me (although that shoulder shake thing he does when he laughs is either deeply annoying or deeply endearing, sometimes both at the same time), he was serious and determined, and he was clearly teary eyed when he talked about the sacrifices soldiers and their families were making in the war on terror.

George Bush could be a cub master – you have to like being the butt of most of the jokes. I just can’t imagine John Kerry making jokes at his own expense let alone having fun with it. While I’ve always said it’s easy to fake sincerity, it’s spontaneity that is hard to fake, I do think Bush’s teary eyes were sincere. I know Bill Clinton among others could turn the waterworks on and off at will, but I don’t think Bush can (I don’t think Kerry’s that good a fake, either).

I can’t make any predictions or claims about the effects on the famed swing voters, but I don’t think Bush hurt himself with the speech, and I do think he’s pulling ahead of Kerry. I’ll be honest, I don’t see how anybody but a hard core Democrat could vote for Kerry. But I know perfectly reasonable sane and smart people who think Kerry is the better of the two for President. Bush wouldn’t be my first pick out of everybody for President, but there’s only two in the race. 

Tags: George Bush

I haven’t seen much of the Republican convention. I’ve been too busy with important stuff. Monday I night I helped on my cub scout pack’s parade float (I’ll be doing the same thing tonight). My wife and I were mystified to flip on the TV and see McCain booed by the audience and a reaction shot of a large hairy man who bore a striking resemblance to Michael Moore. Fortunately, McCain repeated the line that started the booing and so we realized that we were seeing Michael Moore being booed by an audience (he ought to be getting used to it by now). I didn’t find the rest of the speech too riveting so I caught up on my reading of Science News. We then caught the beginning of Giuliani’s speech and boy, it was good, but we went up to bed about the time he started detailing how Germany failed humanity by releasing the terrorists from the Munich Olympics. My wife doesn’t need her beauty sleep, but I sure do.

Last night I had to do some scout paperwork/planning, and I did manage to squeeze in some demon slaying with my Paladin before the Amazing Race, so all I saw of Schwartzenneger’s speech was the walk backstage from the podium. We watched the Bush twins, who don’t even look like sisters, and I thought that they were better than 99% of celebrity award show banter, which isn’t exactly high praise. When George introduced Laura — who seems to have more sense than to be a politician herself — my wife and I wondered if anybody in the game going on behind him realized they were playing in front of a national audience. Laura was Laura, which means I’d vote for her for any office, but I can take only so much speechifying, especially those that have constant applause lines. So after discovering there wasn’t much else on TV, we toddled off to bed.

Fortunately, Conrad has some insightful observations of his own.

Tags: George Bush