It Takes A Village Idiot

All hat, no cattle as they say in Texas.

Bush and the Administration have always claimed to be working for all Americans, for the future. In Molly Ivins book Shrub, she said the conventional wisdom in Texas, while Bush was governor, was to watch out if he mentioned your agency, or did a photo op - because the budget or operational cut was right behind.

For example, In 2002, Bush did a photo op with 9 miners rescued from the Quecreek Mine. And immediately thereafter, proposed a 6% cut in MSHA budget, coming after two years of budget and staffing cuts.

So when Bush says something about the glorious advances they are making in some area, it's usually cover, if not an outright lie. Sometimes, someone even catches him at it; but the 'Librul' Media of course, refuses to document any instance of the Chimperor being caught with no clothes and no dick.

Recently a college sophomore, reflecting quite positively on her Kansas State University, stumped Bush with a question on education financing. Of course, the audience was outside of his comfort zone of mouth breathing Bush Supporters, right wing zealots, Christopaths and bigots; also, the question had to do with, you know, REALITY, unfiltered through Karl Roves degenerate mind so poor old George is already at a loss.

Here's the video and a trancscript.

Bush claims that they were not cutting aid, and that no one would be thrown off of either the Student Loan or Pell Grant programs; in the face of 12.7 billion dollars in budget cuts and the termination of over 24,000 students.

Yeah, it's reform all right. Reform so Congress can give that money to the oh-so-distressed Insurance Industry.

This kind of bait and switch corporate pillaging is particularly galling to me; I only managed to go to college through the Pell and Student loan programs, which were already being cut every year under dear old Ronnie Raygun, whose motto of course, was “Let them eat Jellybeans!”

Of course, to people like GWB, Rove and Cheney, student loans to kids from blue collar families only decrease the value of being born to rich, white, Republican families, and increases competition for those valued entitlement spots at Yale and Harvard; their dimwitted offspring might actually have to work and demonstrate some real intelligence and worth to maintain their privileged positions.

Notice the stammering and how Bush casts about for some kind of soundbite or talking point before ending up at.... Reform! That's the ticket!

Q: My name is Tiffany Cooper. I’m a sophomore here at Kansas State and I was just wanting to get your comments about education. Recently 12.7 billion dollars was cut from education. I was just wondering how is that supposed to help our futures?

Bush: Education budget was cut — say it again. What was cut?

Q: 12.7 billion dollars was cut from education. I’m wanting to know how is that supposed to help our futures?

Bush: At the federal level?

Q: Yes.

Bush: I don’t think we’ve actually — for higher education? Student loans?

Q: Yes, student loans.

Bush: Actually, I think what we did was reform the student loan program. We are not cutting money out of it. In other words, people aren’t going to be cut off the program. We’re just making sure it works better as part of the reconciliation package I think she’s talking about? Yeah — ...

Good Luck, Tiffany. Regardless of whether anybody in the media notices that you won a battle of the wits with an unarmed Preznit, you did good.


You know, all those people who believe the President is doing fine, and support his beleaguered 36% approval ratings, haven't they ever seen a two-bit magician? Penn and Teller? Misdirection is all they do. It' the sum total of the Misadministration's policy initiatives - Look! Something Shiny! - while they shovel money to cronies, lapdogs, and bloated corporations with overcompensated executives.

Is it really necessary to say that if you wanted to foster an atmosphere of achievement, of betterment, of bootstrapping, that actually funding the programs that make it possible is going to be a requirement?


All hat, no cattle.