From Capitol Hill to Wall Street to Barcelona one thing is becoming abundantly clear: Everything in the world, that is wrong with the world, is George W. Bush's fault.
The big story was the President's speech about the string of book cookings on the part of a few major corporations.
President Bush went to New York to look about a thousand business leaders right in the eye and tell them that if they cook THEIR books, they are more likely to get caught today than they were yesterday, and if they are caught, they are more likely to be wearing an orange jump suit today than they were yesterday.
There wasn't much applause because, I think, people in audience were busy Blackberry-ing their lawyers to keep them out of jail or, pending that, their travel agents to get them out of the country.
Nevertheless, it wasn't enough. According to Marcy Gordon's AP piece, "Democrats assailed President Bush's � speech as long on rhetoric and short on action."
Keep in mind the Democrats complained about that "short on action" business about 30 seconds after the speech had ended.
Actually, Tom Daschle and Dick Gephardt called a press conference, before the President's speech had even begun, to complain about it.
Because the folks in the White House are not exactly new at this, the President started his speech about 15 minutes early which forced the cable news channels to cut away from, and thereby step on, the Daschle-Gephardt presser.
I love this stuff.
Senator Jon Corzine, who is a Democrat from New Jersey and, the former co-chairman of the board of mega-investment-banker Goldman Sachs, said the President's speech was "a grave disappointment."
We can't help but believe that a few short years ago Mr. Corzine would have been one of those people in the audience sharing his lawyers' phone numbers.
Cooking the books is all George W's fault.
Apparently the only thing which will mollify the Democrats in Congress is for the U.S. Government to take control of each and every activity of each and every corporation in the United States.
Been there. Done that. Didn't work out so well. We called it: "The Soviet Union."
Meanwhile in Barcelona, a big conference on AIDS is going on. The Administration of George W. Bush has recently pledged a BILLION dollars to help relieve AIDS-related problems, largely in Africa where the infection rate in some countries is approaching a horrifying 40 percent.
Not enough. According to a Reuters report, "Some 30 AIDS activists stormed the proceedings as [Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy] Thompson got up to speak and dozens more kept up a barrage of chants and whistles, making his words completely inaudible."
AIDS is a terrible disease, but it didn't start in the US. Additionally, there are a number of organizations connected to other diseases: Cancer, Heart Disease, and Diabetes, to name but three, who regularly complain that the vast amounts of research dollars which the US has committed to AIDS research has cut the dollars available to find ways to combat those diseases.
Nevertheless, the protesters in Spain had signs which read, "Wanted: Bush and Thompson for murder and neglect of people with AIDS."
The spread of AIDS is George W's fault.
Columnist Molly Ivins, who has never forgiven George W for defeating Ann Richards for Governor in 1994, said in an interview on MSNBC that George Bush speaking out on corporate responsibility was like "opening your refrigerator and finding Fidel Castro inside smoking a cigar."
I am not often struck dumb, but that did it. I can't even remember what I said in response.
Molly Ivins' weird fantasies are George W's fault.
Speaking of dumb, the requisite number of protesters greeted President Bush in Manhattan yesterday. One sign read - this is the actual spelling:
How dumb is to dumb
Bad grammar is George W's fault.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today, links to the Democrats' reaction of the President's speech, and Secretary Thompson's speech in Spain, and a pretty good Catchy Caption of the Day
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