While we're on the subject of hot tubs and the like ....
Posted on 07/13/2002 4:51:13 PM PDT by Pokey78
WASHINGTON — Dick and Rummy are in the Jacuzzi at Camp David.
The two masters of the Bush universe have had a lousy week. And now, with the white cast on Rummy's hand buoyed by bubbles, they just want to sip Scotch on the rocks and review the knocks.
They are keeping one eye on the Kid, who's been jogging circles around Aspen Lodge for the past nine hours.
Junior is supposed to be inside practicing how to say "mal-fea-sance" with an "s." But he won't do it. He's sulking. He went to Wall Street on Tuesday to show that the hero of Sept. 11 could retaliate against the creeps who wiped out the neighborhood and also keep C.E.O.'s from looting.
But the president who got elected on the backs of C.E.O.'s and said he wanted to run the country like a C.E.O. was about as convincing a sheriff as Barney Fife.
Rummy's war has also run into a bad patch, bombing brides instead of bin Laden.
As the two men soak, more steam is coming from the vice president than the hot tub.
"The Kid never should have gone to Wall Street in the first place," Dick grumbles. "All those poppycock reforms he and Rove rushed into the speech. Who knew our Karl was also a Marxist? When the going gets tough, the weak go polling. Who cares what Americans think? They should care what we think."
W. jogs past with a singsong chant: "It's NOT my fault, it's NOT my fault, it's BUBBA'S fault, it's BUBBA'S fault."
Dick and Rummy laugh indulgently.
"SWAT teams swooping down on C.E.O.'s?" Dick scoffs. "What nonsense. Will government lawyers ride around in stealth golf carts and read these guys their rights on the back nine?
"We certainly don't need more transparency in this country. Transparency is just a fancy kind of indecent exposure, a sick counterculture idea, whether it's about the markets, accounting or giving up the names of our Houston buddies who dictated my energy policy. I say: Zip it.
"We don't owe anybody any explanation for any thought or action that any of us have ever had or done."
Rummy grins devilishly and skillfully balances his glass on his cast in a silent toast.
"Those lily-livered liberals in Congress are outrageous — they're criminalizing greed!" Dick says. "And the spineless Republican fellow travelers on the Hill are almost worse — they'll dry up our donor base and destroy the party before they're through. McCain is just Norman Thomas with medals.
"I have nothing against sharing, of course. As long as it's us getting the shares.
"Our strategy is to slow down the House and Senate so these stiffer accounting and corporate-greed bills never see the light of day. Maybe you guys could accelerate your war on Baghdad. A righteous distraction would come in handy."
The Pentagon boss indicates with a nod of his cast that this is possible. "Bunch of anticapitalist, world-government-loving wusses," Rummy says. "They don't understand how tough we had it as C.E.O.'s. It's lonely at the top."
Junior jogs over to the Jacuzzi and tries to get Vice's attention.
"Dude?"
Dick waves him off and resumes his rant: "All that stands between America and socialism are stock options. Without options, companies can't lure great leaders who will take risks — with other people's money, of course. If Congress got its way, when the stock went down, the C.E.O. would lose money just like everyone else. But we are not everyone else."
The president tries again to get Dick's attention: "Dude?"
Dick goes on, his dander rising. "I'm sick and tired of these Sunday morning pinkos trying to impoverish the ruling class. People should get off my back about the way I cashed out of Halliburton. What's $20 million these days?"
Rummy is astonished. For the first time in the many decades he has known Dick, his friend's face is no longer affectless. Dick gives the impression of something that can only be called emotion.
But the Kid has finally lost patience. He jumps into the Jacuzzi, barely missing Rummy's cast, and sloshes right over to Vice, leaning into his ear and wailing plaintively: "Where's Karen?"
****************************************************
From Oxblog:
IMMUTABLE LAWS OF DOWD1. Ashcroft never deserves credit.
2. Offering constructive solutions to problems, instead of whining endlessly about them, is a sign of weakness.
3. The People Magazine principle: all political phenomena can be explained with reference solely to caricatures of the personalities involved ("Dubya" is stupid; "Poppy" is an aristocrat; Cheney is macho-man; etc.). Any reference to the common good or even to old-fashioned politicking is, like, so passe.
4. It is much better to be cute than coherent.
5. Maureen knows best. Her long years as a columnist (doing basically what your great-aunt Tillie does in the nursing home bull sessions, but getting paid for it) have given her deep insight into foreign relations, politics, welfare, the Constitution, and all other topics. To disagree with Maureen in any way is not only a sign of being wrong, it's a hallmark of pure evil...or at least membership in the NRA, which is pretty much the same thing.
6. It is usually possible and always desirable to name-drop and name-call in the same sentence.
7. The particulars of my consumer-driven, shamefully self-involved life reveal universal truths.
And Maureen has all the credibility of Susan Smith (only she has no kids to drown, of course).
While we're on the subject of hot tubs and the like ....
Ummmm, Barney was the Deputy, Mo. Andy was the Sheriff.
regards
If she loves socialism so much, I will INSTANTLY go to her house, take 90 % of what she has, give 20 percent to the poor and put the rest in the CENTRAL planning office.
Of course, she means OTHER rich people, you know the kind that actually WORK.
As another poster said, I must pull the rest of my post as it would be offensive... about one hundreth as offensive as that moronic article that she penned.
I'm still grappling with the obvious question; How can someone with such a huge vocabulary have so little use for it?
Buchwald always had some crazy acquaintance with some crazy idea that was supposed to be a devlishly witty commentary about contemporary politics. I don't know much about Baker, except 1) he hosts Masterpiece Theater now and tells us every week how horrible those Victorians really were (according to a script that some overworked intern churns out the night before) and 2) he thought he had "a country in his cellar." Don't ask me what it means. I couldn't figure that one out.
The People Magazine principle: all political phenomena can be explained with reference solely to caricatures of the personalities involved.
Isn't this the old Doonesbury "I can't draw faces, so I'll just draw a feather floating in space" gambit?
Its been a long time since anyone has called Mo cute. You've just made her day.
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