December 19, 2004
Commentary:
Bunny suits and spelling difficulties
By Jack GrantBack in late July, I wrote about the widespread posting of the photo of John Kerry in the "bunny suit" at NASA. The Commissar had a very insightful comment to my question of "Is this what people really decide based upon?" In the comments to my post, he wrote:
Such images might, or might not, resonate with the people if they illustrate something that the people already feel.Dukakis in the tank and Bush 41 at the grocery scanner* epitomized one's soft-on-defense-liberalism and the other's disconnect from ordinary realities of American's lives. Put the 'Dean scream' in there as well.
I don't know if bunny-suit-Kerry will come to symbolize his (alleged) waffling or something else about him. But, in an odd way, it will shake out.
*See Snopes on the falsity of the Bush scanner event.
A photo from the recent White House Economic Conference encapsulates perfectly what I perceive as the major problem with the Bush administration:
From Yahoo! News:
'Challenges' Prove Too Much for White HouseThu Dec 16, 4:17 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House went all out to showcase the advantages of President Bush (news - web sites)'s ambitious financial agenda this week, but in the end the "challenges" proved too much.
The word "challenges" -- a main theme of a two-day White House economic conference that ended on Thursday -- was misspelled on a large television monitor that stood in front of Bush during a panel discussion.
"Financial Challanges for Today and Tomorrow," the message proclaimed in dark blue capital letters against a bright yellow background.
The conference, which critics derided as a public relations event devoid of serious discussion, spotlighted a second-term Bush agenda that would reform Social Security (news - web sites) and the tax code while making tax cuts permanent and cutting the deficit in half.
The White House had no immediate comment on the misspelling.
Before you say "this is a trivial thing" let me remind you that the Kerry "bunny suit" photo was ALSO a trivial thing.
More importantly, though, is this: The saying "The Devil is in the details" is an old saw for a reason.
Any data that doesn't conform with the viewpoint of the President is minimized or ridiculed. This is not a Good Thing. Broad policy decisions are made based upon data, and pre-filtered data with a spin attached to it does not lead to good decisions. In addition, broad policy decision are one thing, but the implementations of those policies is another thing, and I think we have seen serious problems in the details because they are being neglected.
The details are significantly lacking in the current PR campaign waged by the White House on Social Security, and those missing details are another example that is of a singe piece with the run-up to the war in Iraq and the tax cuts that we now see have led to large deficits. The details neglected in the White House pronouncements on those issues have resulted in substantial costs, both human and monetary. There is also an irony that the President who is responsible for these deficits is raising the alarm over a Social Security "shortfall" projected in approximately 40 years, especially since with his promises to not cut benefits or raise taxes mean that the transition costs of a change in the Social Security system to a partially privatized system will mean even more deficit spending by the government.
This drive for "reform" does not appear to be driven by data, or at least by ALL the data, but instead by ideology, and I fear that similar to the Medicare Prescription Drug law benefited drug companies at the expense of the American taxpayer, Social Security "reform" will mainly benefit Wall Street investment firms, again at the expense of the American taxpayer.
Am I suggesting that President George W. Bush is pushing an agenda solely for the purpose of benefiting his buddies and make them richer? No, I am not saying that, even if that can be read into what I have written. I do believe that President Bush honestly thinks what he is doing is in the best interests of the nation. What concerns me is his method of decision making, and how contrary data seems to have no effect on his actions or decisions. Resolve is not a refusal to see reality, but unfortunately, that appears to be George W. Bush's interpretation of the meaning of that word. As was written by Willam S.Golding, "I don't think that word means what you think it means." Based upon what we have seen to date in this presidency, George W. Bush does not show the ability that his father did of being able to see unpleasant facts and change his direction accordingly, even if it costs politically (see the "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge of George H.W. Bush and how in accepting the reality that contradicted his resolve and acting correctly in response to the situation he ultimately lost his bid to be re-elected).
Faith is well and good in matters of religion, but in matters of public policy it should be a guide to help in deciding the moral course of action based upon the data, and only a guide, not the sole basis of policy decisions, no matter how unappealing the rational, logical conclusions arising from that data are. Ultimately I suspect the "faith-based decision making" that has on more than one occasion shown a complete disconnect with reality will be widely regarded as the key failure of this Presidency, especially when the squandering of goodwill after September 11, 2001 through a series of ill-advised decisions is considered.
Hi! Over on Boudicca's recommendation. I've not been disappointed.
I always appreciate pictures of politicians looking ridiculous, but your commentary is great, too :-)
Posted by: Sally at December 19, 2004 08:12 PMJack: I just read your post at Pennywit, and you are right. My apologies for not posting at least a copy here of my critique of your post, to which PW had linked. I am not normally that thoughtless, though it may well have been a "senior moment." Those are becoming more common of late.
My remark about the recent presidential election may well have been ill-considered. It hardly matters much who supported whom at this point, and besides what attracted my attention was clearly the reference to Social Security reform. Naturally, I stand by the rest of my criticism of your post, both its structure and its substance. I'd be only to happy to discuss it with you, either here or at Pennywit, as you prefer. Actually, I'm in the midst of preparing and posting a multi-part examination of the need for SSI reform and how best to achieve a viable and solvent system. If you'd care to join in, please do. The subject is almost arcane in it's complexity, and all the more so for all the rhetorical excess that has gone with all previous discussions of Social Security. I believe that by dealing with numbers, rather than partisan hyperbole, perhaps we can find some workable solutions... before the well starts to run dry.
Again, my apologies for my apparent rudeness. It was unintended. Incidently, I had not seen the word "snarky" before. Even at my age, it is quite gratifying to expand one's vocabulary. Thank you. I'm sure I'll have little trouble finding a liberal to pin it on.
Posted by: Bat One at December 23, 2004 03:52 AM
