Austin, Texas... Politex's for LETTERS ...www.bushwatch.com

home... news... novel... gossip... 'toons... archives... site map... us... e-mail... previous letters...

Politex...

I've been reading Bush Watch since before the election and while you sometimes get some fat wood on the ball, most of the time I don't sense this. Why? The reason is that Bush is a distraction, a monkey on a string. The organ-grinder is Cheney--you have probably read the current New Yorker profile of Cheney--and so I urge you create a linked "Cheneywatch" page. Though he's such a "stealth" personality that you may not get much wood on the ball with him either. Keep doing what you're doing. --Marcus in New Orleans, 5/3/01

Found something interesting in a Norwegian newspaper: In a little note they report that the Spanish ambassador to the UN has written a harsh and mocking article about Bush in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo. According to my source (Norwegian paper "Dagbladet") he says Bush is a slow learner and mediocre in almost everything he does.Arias is appearently astonished that Bush can get such popular support. He goes on to say that he is even more shocked that many Americans still rate Ronald Reagan as a great President. Reagan was, according to Arias, "a man without ideas, with no brain, and ready to kick off nuclear-mayhem." I have searched both the NY Times and Washington Post and I couldn´t find anything on Arias or the article. --Jonas, Norway, 4/29/01

Can you believe that I just now read the section on dyslexia? My son is dyslexic (he's 12) and I believe there's something to what you've written on the subject. I wanted to add 2 thoughts. 1. Dyslexia is not a static condition. Some days my son does really well, some days he has a recurrent "glitch" (can't "see" the ends of words, can't "see" the middle of long words), and some days are just "bad word days", when he can read almost nothing at all. With that in mind, do you remember the infamous "deer in the headlights" speech Shrub made during the Dec. fiasco? No one could figure out why he was so glued to the teleprompters. This is 20/20 hindsight, but he was stressed out, probably tired, probably trying to read rolling script--a worst case scenario for a dyslexic--I think he was having a "bad word day" and the look you saw was sheer terror. He was scared to death that he was going to lose his place in the speech.

2. Some experts believe that dyslexia is a actually a communication disorder and should be included in the very mild end of the autism spectrum disorders. My family is a prime example--my son is dyslexic, my sister's daughter is dyslexic, my grandson is moderately autistic, but severely language-impaired. Other aspects of communication disorders include aphasia (the inability to "translate" a thought into a spoken word--you know what you want to say, but you can't "locate" the word for it in your brain), a lack of phonemic awareness (unable to break a word down into separate sound components or inability to differentiate between similar sounds), and a type of social/emotional "tonedeafness" (an inappropriate response in a social setting, such as laughing when someone else is upset or not realizing that what you're saying or doing is offending another.) I think this could explain the mispronunciations, and the time Shrub made fun of Karla Faye Tucker's request for a stay of execution. Maybe it also explains the many times when Shrub seems to be ignorant on a subject--maybe it's not so much that he doesn't know what the reporters are talking about, it's just that he can't retrieve the words he needs to express himself. This may sound heartless, but I don't know if a dyslexic individual should be President of the US. This can only be conjecture, because GWB will never get himself tested, but do we really want a leader that has days when he finds it impossible to communicate his thoughts to others? Especially when you figure in the fact that dyslexics often find that the days when they're most severely impaired are the days that they are under the most stress and when they must work to the point of exhaustion, should we run the risk of our President inadvertently offending the leader of another nation with an ill-timed verbal mis-step? (The fiasco with the North Korean leader comes immediately to mind.) Even if everyone understood the nature of this disability, is it really wise to say, "Please stop the negotiations for two hours. I'm having a bad day and I need a nap?" There comes a point when, like the deterioration of Reagan due to Alzheimer's, that we can no longer make accommodations due to disability. We "elect" our leaders with the understanding that they will be able to handle the job in every situation, be it good or bad. I don't know that anyone with more than a mild form of dyslexia could unequivocally make that kind of pledge. Hope to shake your hand in DC-- Susan, 4/27/01

It is amazing the length corporate media goes to "construct" a leadership image for Bush, rather then expose the ineptness and incapacity of this man to be either a national or international leader! His inability to comment spontaneously regarding national and international crises our nation faces from day to day makes one wonder: what were the Republicans thinking when they chose him to run for president!? Do they want power so much that they wanted a man lacking intelligence to be their puppet, or had they just naively thought that enough of Daddy's money and "professional priming" and he "should" do fine! No matter what the corporate media does to convince the public otherwise, Bush's time is short and over! The man is a slap to any American with intelligence, except of course if their hunger for either money or right wing conservative take over blinds them enough to disconnect any form of critical thinking. Furthermore, the international audience, who have REAL news coverage of national events, is laughing at us, and rightly so! The moral of the story of the "Emperor's Clothes" is that only persons stupid and gullible enough will believe whatever they are told! Surely, the international audience by now is examining more closely the intelligence they thought Americans were known for. By silencing intelligent thinking, the media has, among other things, WRONGFULLY projected the United States as a country full of idiots! --Tina, 4/15/01

There is no excuse for Junior Bush’s flubbing baseball season’s ceremonial first pitch at the Milwaukee Brewer’s game in Miller Stadium. Had the Bush "strategory" team been put in charge the scenario could have played out in this manner:

1. Daddy Bush would have insured the stadium was packed with old friends and special interest groups loaded with soft money, misinformation, and hidden agendas.
2. Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris would have disenfranchised key members from the opposing team prior to the game.
3. The Bush-friendly Supreme Court Justices would have stopped the pitching and carried the ball across the plate themselves thereby assuring Junior Bush another underwhelming victory and unmerited sense of accomplishment. --Joe, 4/12/01

Pondering W and his life, I realized that some have several basic misunderstandings that make it impossible to understand W and his special talents. Once the guiding principles of his life are understood, his actions become an example of Newtonian logic and order.

1. Morality exclusively concerns sex. Morality is unrelated to public policy with respect to the environment, economy or foreign affairs.

2. Lying is a sin when associated with sex. It is required when trying to deceive the public as to your true objectives. Lying is also acceptable when describing your life before you found Jesus.

3. National defense is synonymous with defense spending. The sole objective of national defense policy is to insure the profitability of defense contractors. This was the greatest weakness of the Clinton years. His obsession with peace undermined the viability of defense contractors.

4. Christianity is at the core of American government as long as you ignore the Jesus part. Jesus's interest in forgiveness and concern for the poor and downtrodden is not appropriate for true All American Christians. Real Americans practice Old Testament Christianity, uncontaminated by Christ.

5. Increased crime is at the core of Republican electoral success. Many Americans associate crime with race and that is synonymous with black guys raping white women. Poppy Bush knew this. Increasing the crime rate greatly improves the chances of winning in the next election.

6. Dead people don't vote. Cancer victims, the young, elderly and all who are vunerable to pollution or to low levels of arsenic or salmonella simply don't vote. Those who are sick and in poor health will die, so the problem automatically solves itself. Catering to the elderly, sick or unfortunate is a meaningless activity since they will soon be dead.

7. Work contaminates money. The best money is inherited or given to you. The government should encourage inherited wealth and distribute the income of those who work to those who don't.

8. Education is for those whose parents can afford it. If your parents and their friends are wealthy enough and influential enough education is a way to spend time before you are given what you deserve. Education is fundamentally unnecessary.

9. There is nothing wrong with failure. Failure provides your parents' friends a chance to show how much they admire your parents. Failure is a warm and enjoyable experience since it makes Poppy and Mom feel loved, or gives them the chance to get you into another school or business and show how much power and influence they have.

10. Facts are impediments to understanding true reality. Reality is a gift from God to the fortunate. It is given at birth and is unrelated to the embarrassment generated by so-called facts. There can never be enough facts to undo true reality, i.e., arsenic and salmonella need more study.

I hope this helps you to arrive at a better understanding of W. --Bob, 4/10/01

About THAT'S MY BUSH on the Comedy Channel...To the show's credit, Bush was portrayed as (a) shallow (b) not too bright (c) indecisive (d) uninformed (e) duplicitous (f) unresponsive to his wife's sexual appetites, and (g) a buffoon. Could the satire have been sharper? Sure.... I cannot think of any other president who has been accorded such a send-up, so early in his term of office. Simply as a phenomena, it is fascinating. Does it hold promise of drawing blood? Hard to say. Will it drive Bush nuts anyhow? I'm inclined to think it probably will, simply because he is portrayed as so puerile, and so negligible. One of the premises of the show is to parody someone's idea of a fifties sit-com, but I think the writers are probably too young to have ever seen one, so the attempt rings hollow. My guess is that they will drop that part of the thing, and it will get better as the episodes go on, in response to critical reaction. Good or bad, I view it as a plus [for those who dislike Bush], not a negative. I continue to believe that ridicule is the most powerful political weapon, and if this attempt is less than stellar, it still is an attempt, and may sharpen its aim as the weeks go on. As a topical weekly show? Hmmm... could they achieve a high level of venom and then sustain it? Hard to say.... --Arthur, 4/8/01

THE BREW GUY ANSWERS THE NEXT LETTER...The guy has described the damage to the plane correctly, and he is probably right about the pilot's ability to put it down in the ocean. I still wonder why it was there in the first place, given that the head of the U.S. Pacific Command, Adm. Dennis Blair, said the crash was probably caused by the fighter bumping into the U.S. plane and had been an accident waiting to happen because of the aggressive tactics of Chinese pilots. In other words, the Bush Administration (remember where the buck stops) sent our pilot into a situation which was "an accident was waiting to happen." He might want to excuse Bush for that, I don't. Why Bush sent the pilot into that situation, and how they responded to what apparently was inevitable, I find far more interesting, and that was really the point of my column. The Brew Guy, 4/5/01

AND SO DOES DORIS... OK, let's see. If they think that they are a threat, even though this looks like delusions of grandeur on their part, I should think that they are a threat, even though this looks paranoid on my part, because in the end it's less "scary" to appear just as bonkers as the opposition than to come across as, uh, "rational." Do I have this right yet? I think I'm getting the hang of it--kind of a "lowest common denominator" approach to reality, where the most deluded among us get to define reality because, after all, they "feel it in their hearts." Sounds like the Bush School of Epistemology, doesn't it? I prefer the Doris School of Epistemology, according to which such relativistic views of reality are considered false because I don't feel them in MY heart, and I see no reason why I can't be the center of the universe if idiots like Bush can. The only thing I still don't understand is why those aliens never abduct some people right in the middle of certain conversations I'm tired of having . . . The Person Who Thinks She's Doris in a Place That Looks Like Annapolis, 4/6/01

Re the Brew Guy's Chinagate story yesterday...Have any of you people ever been in the military? Have you ever tried to get 24 GI's to keep their mouths shut about anything? Can you imagine asking 24 of today's kids to deliberately smack into a fighter at altitude and then be quiet because it's better for the country? IT AIN'T GOING TO HAPPEN. The plane's airworthiness was NOT "intact." The radome was gone, the prop tips are chopped up, it had no flaps and no airspeed indicator. You're not going to try and fly this thing any further than you have to, so while your crew is busily destroying everything that's classified, you're trying to find a flat spot to save their lives. Without flaps you can't ditch in the water, so you either kill everybody by crashing the aircraft or you put it on the ground as safely as you can.

Re Doris' rant the other day...It's not paranoid to think that there are people out there who THINK (in their hearts) that they're Bush's minions who would hammer a site just to suck up to the big guy, even if he has plausible deniability....Applying rationality to their thought processes is detrimental, and thinking they aren't a threat is pretty scary thinking. --A Bush Watcher, 4/5/01

The Ultimate Bushism

Day 0: President screw-up takes "hard" stand with "traditional enemies". He instructs his "Chief of Future Wars Soon to be Fought" that our planes, ships, and other military conveyances ("the ones with the big stars painted on them") should, wherever possible, poke the hell out of the enemy's air/sea and land space. "Put them to the test" he roars. "Let them know who's boss on this here planet of mine". Behind the scenes, in the crafty yet vacuous mind of the "Administration", is the warped idea that publicly acceptable excuses can be manufactured for a senseless foreign policy, one that can only lead us into war. It matters not that American (and other) lives will be lost in the process and that, should calculations be a little off, we could all end up quite dead.

Day 1: America Electronic Spy plane skirts Chinese (traditional enemy; other evil empire) airspace. This is part of the test, but it begins to go bad. Chinese kick ass; plane brought down onto military airfield. Chinese have field day with new American Electronic Tinker Toy.

Day 2: President screw-up, predictably, gets all hot and bothered that our gallant military heroes are being treated like spies, and demands "the norms of diplomacy" be observed (i.e. please don't shoot the lot of them), and bleats on in usual arrogant saber-mouth tone. In concert, White House propaganda machine rattles out fiction which the press immediately plaster as truth throughout all US media.

Day 2.5: President screw-up orders naval forces "into the area". Press Disinformation Department issues statement that "3 destroyers" will be deployed. In the meantime, two aircraft carriers, escort cruisers and several nuclear-armed submarines quickly sail. American public watch news lies then tune in soap operas and game shows while President screw up demands immediate release of plane (and crew). China returns rhetoric.

Day 3: President screw-up takes a break from his daily exercise routine to plan an attack (read: "rescue mission"). He had hoped to make one of his weekly jokes about environmentalists and people concerned with food, air and water safety, but his staff insist he try to remain lucid as China and US military forces increase their "alert" status.

Day 3.5: As during the last screw up, China recalls ambassador to the US. US detects Soviet Union has increased alert status. US stock market down as investors heartburn increases to a level greater than it did when they realized "he" would actually be elected. Japanese public, in record numbers, remain at home with their families, worried. Very little information comes from "White House". Press speculates.

Day 3.75: US diplomats formally denied access to US spy plane and crew.

Day 4: Chinese submarine, a little ticked that US Aegis destroyers are heading straight for Chinese territory, fire upon and sink one of the ships. Other vessels return fire. Fate of Chinese submarine unknown.

Last Day: Aircraft carriers launch attack upon Chinese ships and planes. Unknown number of vessels sunk or damaged. "Limited" nuclear exchange begins with "tactical" weapons employed. Bright flashes seen from South Korea and Japanese islands of Okinawa and Kyushu. No word from White House. American public now on edge (finally). Press criticism of Former Bush Administration mounts. Americans universally wondering how they could have made such a huge mistake, such an awful gamble, with their country (too late).

As American military installations completely occupy South Asia , little of Japanese/South Korean territory spared from inbound Chinese missiles. Russia joins in the fray as US is caught somewhat off guard, not responding as rapidly as anticipated. Nuclear devices detonate over major US cities and most military installations. US retaliates, but of course it's far too late.

When we last left our country, it was in the good hands of a decent, seasoned, balanced man. Now, through our new militarism, and our combined idiocy, we have managed to sink a defenseless Japanese fisheries training vessel loaded with high school students; derail the Israeli peace process; turn back the reunification of the Koreas; alienate our European allies with our senseless rhetoric and idiotic policy changes and, yes, so firmly divide the American public that it's becoming increasingly difficult to voice a political opinion without a sense that personal violence is not too far around the corner. We clearly see that violence is what the Former Bush Administration is all about. It's evident each morning as we hear the latest "news" of what the Former Bush Administration has done the previous day. In our short memory, he has so far committed violence against women... violence against the environment... violence against literacy and intelligence... violence against our world neighbors... violence against truth... violence against the dis-franchised, the minorities, those without a voice... violence against our prisoners - those who cry out for help from a community who should be of a greater wisdom... violence against those who seek openness, pluralism and decency worthy of a great state.

Thanks to the Former Bush Administration, we now return to the 1950's, where, with the Presidency and both Congressional bodies in Republican hands, we can enter a new Century and a new cold war. It makes us so proud. The ultimate bushism will be when The Button is finally pushed. It will be The True End, and a fitting one, because it's always been said it will take a real idiot to commit such a horrible act. Now we have one. Welcome to our new world. --Mark Richards, 4/4/01