Mullings A Political Cyber Column By Rich Galen

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Episode IV: A New Hope

Wednesday, February 28, 2001

If the primary election battle with John McCain was Episode I; The general election, Episode II; The Horra in Florida, Episode III; Then last night's first address to a Joint Session of Congress was the beginning of Episode IV.

The President's program focuses on exactly the same themes he used during the campaign:
Education
Social Security
Health Care
Defense
Tax Relief

You can read all the details in your morning paper, but overall The Bush Plan sounds pretty reasonable. It pays down the debt, puts more money into the areas he promised to put more money into, and gives income tax relief to everyone who pays income taxes - amounting to $1,600 for a typical family of four.

It preserves Social Security, provides a drug benefit for low income seniors; and provides a pay raise and better housing to military personnel.

And it puts a lot of money into, and focus upon, education generally, and early reading skills in particular.

Fox's Jim Angle: "His Inaugural Address set the tone for Washington. This speech set the agenda for Washington."

Oh. And he nailed it.

The total budget spending amounts to some $1.9 Trillion. Remember the good old days, when Illinois Senator Everett Dirksen said "A million here, a million there, suddenly it's real money?"

Just to review the bidding, a Million is a one followed by six zeros. Pshaw. Six zeros. Don't waste my time. In Your Nation's Capital a million dollars is equivalent to the contents of the penny plate next to the cash register at the luncheonette. Need a million? Take a million. Got a million? Leave a million.

A Billion (in the US) is a thousand million - a one followed by nine zeros.

A Trillion (in the US) is a million million - a one followed by 12 zeros. Suddenly, it's real money.

Just in case you're wondering, the next two are Quadrillion and Quintillion. I'm not sure when Bazillion and Gazillion come up.

On the Pardon Watch, Washington Post writers Susan Schmidt and Peter Slevin found Secret Service logs that showed Beth "I'll-Take-The-Fifth-Amendment" Dozoretz and Denise "Why-Do-YOU-Always-Get-To-Decide-Which-Amendment-To-Take?" Rich were actually IN the White House on the last night of the Clinton administration at exactly the time Bill "You-Take-The-Amendments-I'm-Taking-The-Furniture" Clinton was agonizing over those 176 pardons and commutations.

They write that Dozoretz' husband, Ronald, told them that "although she was cleared to enter the White House, his wife did not attend the party and was in a plane in California with him at 5:30 p.m. on Jan. 19, a minute after Secret Service logs show she entered the White House complex."

Further in the piece: "While the logs indicate that Denise Rich arrived at about the same time, a source close to her said that while she was invited, Rich did not go to the White House."

I have been to the White House. You have to show an official picture ID to get past the guys with guns. Either two women who looked very much like Denise and Beth used their drivers' licenses to sneak in past the guards; or two women using the names Rich and Dozoretz were driven onto the White House grounds in a White House limo without having to show any ID; or Ronald Dozoretz is lying.

Ooooorrrr. Maybe this is it! The Uniformed Division of the United States Secret Service picked two names AT RANDOM out of the Manhattan phone book and wrote them into the entry log as a kind of, you know, a Last-Day-Of-School joke. And then they ran outside and threw each other into the bushes.
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Copyright © 2001 Richard A. Galen

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