fred.doddridge.net

I’ve been wanting to rant about this for well over a year now, funny thing is I only think about it when I’m driving to work. About once a week I’ll be merging onto I-215 and the ideas will come flooding back into memory. Weird.

At least I did finally remember… well, on with it then. I find it so very interesting that our current beloved Presidential administration speaks about NOT setting a deadline in Iraq for the pull-out of our soldiers because it would somehow endanger the mission, yet just a short while ago he was demanding a deadline for all of the seniors in this country to choose a Medicare prescription drug program or face stiff penalties.

So… deadlines are good for seniors, but bad for wars?

From an LA Times article, May 10, 2006 regarding the Medicare deadline:

During a question period after the speech, a member of the audience pressed Bush to extend the deadline.

But Bush pushed back. “Deadlines are important,” he said. “Deadlines help people understand there’s finality, and people need to get after it, you know.”

From another article on commondreams.org Feb 6, 2007 about the Iraq deadlines:

Mr Bush said the fact there was no projected figure for 2010 did not mean he expected US troops to be out of Iraq by then. He said he did not want to set a timetable “because we don’t want to send mixed signals to an enemy or to a struggling democracy or to our troops”.

I guess it’s just a matter of priorities, right?

Speaking of deadlines, here’s another one for ya: From swamppolitics.com Jan 10, 2008.

Yeah, that one’s gonna work… haha!

This appeared on my google.com portal today:

What a perfect quote for the current campaign season. Not for another four years will we be treated to such a gluttony of long words and exhausted idioms as we will enjoy this fall as both candidates for the US Presidency lather up the public with their insincerity cloaked in promises and concern for our plight.

Haha, I guess I put up some big words there too eh? Maybe I’m the insincere one and the politicians really do care about us… hmm. But I didn’t use any exhausted idioms in that paragraph. Well perhaps I just have an axe to grind with politicians, and got off on the wrong foot here. I mean drastic times call for drastic measures, make no bones about that. If a politician needs to wag the dog to get elected he must have our best interests at heart, right?

Ugh, I’m making myself sick.

In truth it’s not just during the campaign season that we are force fed insincerity from our leaders. I guess what makes George Orwell’s quote so appropriate now is that it’s been so long since we’ve heard our nations leaders say anything even partially comprehensible, much less use big words that actually make sense. Yes, the fact that Barack Obama and John McCain can actually speak cohesive sentences brings our nation’s politics back from the dark ages of deception and dimwitted arrogance into an enlightened age of articulate insincerity and benevolent lies.

I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry.