At his final rallies, Barack Obama is gleefully telling crowds that Dick Cheney's endorsement this weekend of John McCain was well-earned. George W. Bush is offering no such target by staying completely out of sight, but he did rate a mention in Pennsylvania yesterday, albeit as an afterthought.
“I think," John McCain said, "that Tom Ridge--and President Bush--deserve some credit for the fact there’s not been another attack on the United States of America since 9/11.’
Aside from that, it's been all silence since McCain proclaimed "I am not President Bush' in the final debate.
The actual president, according to press secretary Dana Perino, is "pretty focused" on "getting this economy back in order" in seclusion at Camp David.
He will come out of hiding the weekend after next for a meeting of world leaders in Washington to discuss the global financial crisis but may have even less clout there than in the presidential campaign
His problem, according to a New York Times editorial, is "utter lack of credibility when it comes to the central question of how to regulate national and global financial markets to ensure that this disaster never happens again. Eight years and a huge financial crash later, and Mr. Bush is still extolling the corrective powers of unrestrained markets."
Bush's final days in power are making King Lear look like a party animal.
Showing posts with label lame duck. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lame duck. Show all posts
Monday, November 03, 2008
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Playing President
In last night's Theater of the Absurd, a Lame Duck is quacking at the podium while the ducklings-in-waiting look on, pretending to listen before they waddle out for their turn on the TV stage.
You could have watched the President's last State of the Union address with the sound off and not turned it up as his would-be successors did their predictable soliloquies--Hillary Clinton with a smile as tight as duct tape, dodging questions about Bill; Barack Obama modestly insisting he's no JFK but basking in his Kennedy aura for the day; Mitt Romney mouthing "Washington is broken" platitudes followed by non-sequiturs that Harold Pinter would not have dared to write.
On his way out, George W. Bush is besieged by legislators holding out their programs to be autographed for some e-Bay auction years from now on another planet.
For a coda, a nice-looking schoolteacher named Kathleen Sebelius comes out to review the production by lecturing the "political pundits" before they review it and "obsess over the reactions of members of Congress: 'How many times was the President interrupted by applause? Did Republicans stand? Did Democrats sit?' And the rest of us will roll our eyes and think, 'What in the world does any of that have to do with me?'"
This Washington revival does ample justice to the definition of Theater of the Absurd as "broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism."
Now the actors are off to tour the hinterlands for audiences who will watch with as much puzzlement as they did last night, if they stayed awake for the whole production.
You could have watched the President's last State of the Union address with the sound off and not turned it up as his would-be successors did their predictable soliloquies--Hillary Clinton with a smile as tight as duct tape, dodging questions about Bill; Barack Obama modestly insisting he's no JFK but basking in his Kennedy aura for the day; Mitt Romney mouthing "Washington is broken" platitudes followed by non-sequiturs that Harold Pinter would not have dared to write.
On his way out, George W. Bush is besieged by legislators holding out their programs to be autographed for some e-Bay auction years from now on another planet.
For a coda, a nice-looking schoolteacher named Kathleen Sebelius comes out to review the production by lecturing the "political pundits" before they review it and "obsess over the reactions of members of Congress: 'How many times was the President interrupted by applause? Did Republicans stand? Did Democrats sit?' And the rest of us will roll our eyes and think, 'What in the world does any of that have to do with me?'"
This Washington revival does ample justice to the definition of Theater of the Absurd as "broad comedy, often similar to Vaudeville, mixed with horrific or tragic images; characters caught in hopeless situations forced to do repetitive or meaningless actions; dialogue full of clichés, wordplay, and nonsense; plots that are cyclical or absurdly expansive; either a parody or dismissal of realism."
Now the actors are off to tour the hinterlands for audiences who will watch with as much puzzlement as they did last night, if they stayed awake for the whole production.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Bush-Hunting Season Opens
Next week the President officially becomes a lame duck. One of his staunchest Senate supporters, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, has turned on the issue of children’s health insurance and is actively fighting to defeat him.
“We’re going to try [to] convince people in the House to change their vote,” he said yesterday. “All I can do is make phone calls.”
Not quite “Here I stand, I can do no other,” but 18 Senate Republicans defected from Bush dogma yesterday by voting for the State Children’s Health Insurance Bill the President has promised to veto.
The 67-29 margin would override it, and two Democratic Presidential candidates, Obama and Biden, were not even there. The question now is whether another dozen House Republicans will join the 45 who broke ranks the other day.
The President who lost the popular vote by more than half a million in November 2000 but won the Supreme Court by 5-4 in December has translated that mandate into almost seven years of domination in Washington, but now servile Republicans in Congress are facing extinction next year if they persist in their fealty.
Under cover of Gen. Petraeus, they may hold out over Iraq, but denying children health coverage is quite another matter. The White House may compromise, but they have no experience at it.
Childrens do learn. Do Presidents?
“We’re going to try [to] convince people in the House to change their vote,” he said yesterday. “All I can do is make phone calls.”
Not quite “Here I stand, I can do no other,” but 18 Senate Republicans defected from Bush dogma yesterday by voting for the State Children’s Health Insurance Bill the President has promised to veto.
The 67-29 margin would override it, and two Democratic Presidential candidates, Obama and Biden, were not even there. The question now is whether another dozen House Republicans will join the 45 who broke ranks the other day.
The President who lost the popular vote by more than half a million in November 2000 but won the Supreme Court by 5-4 in December has translated that mandate into almost seven years of domination in Washington, but now servile Republicans in Congress are facing extinction next year if they persist in their fealty.
Under cover of Gen. Petraeus, they may hold out over Iraq, but denying children health coverage is quite another matter. The White House may compromise, but they have no experience at it.
Childrens do learn. Do Presidents?
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