Thursday, December 18, 2008

Frustration With President Bush: Party of the New York Common Man Update

This is not a critical piece about the policies of the Bush Administration. For pretty much the past eight years I have found myself in agreement with him about 60-70% of the time, which is pretty good.

My frustration stems from another source. Watching how the President handled the entire weird shoe throwing incident the other day really bothered me. Here was a very strange situation. An Iraqi journalist, obviously crazed, tosses shoes at the President while cursing him. Here we see President Bush acting on instinct. His secret service want to tackle him and get him out of danger; Bush waves them off. Every mannerism showed grace and personal courage in the face of the unexpected. These things look good to a Middle Eastern audience. The embarassed Iraqi leaders wanted to end the press conference and throw away the tape if possible. Bush turns the incident on its head and explains how democracy and freedom of speech work. We saw and heard Bush as he is, acting on instinct, commanding the situation. The network news even admitted that he won over the Iraqi press corps with his demeanor.

He handled it perfectly. That leads me to wonder, where has this guy been? In his own understated fashion, George W. Bush is a pretty good communicator. The president has charm, wit, and honest common sense as well as a deep conviction. If more of this man's warmth and human concern had emerged over the past several years, people's perceptions would be widely different right now. For whatever reason, President Bush has been bottled up.

That is frustrating!

First and last impressions are always the ones that stick with us the most. One of the world's last impressions of this man as president will be his artful dodging of shoes and his graceful handling of a tough situation. History will remember the good things this man did as we move forward.
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Another Party of the Common Man Update

New York State has spent itself into worse trouble than General Motors, so it has come up with a solvency plan.

First of all, the Democrats in new York think the people that live there are too fat, so they are going to tax non diet soft drinks. That'll learn you fat slobs sucking down your root beers and Coca Cola. At least you have health insurance, right? Well New York State may start taxing that, too. The other whammy comes when hospitals, yes hospitals, will start facing higher taxes.

Way to attack the rising cost of health care by taxing insurance and hospitals. Apparently they will also require new license plates that, of course, will cost.

Why do people drink cola? Because it is cheaper than the healthy alternatives, except Kool Aid. Why is it cheaper? Because federal policy keeps the price of farm products artificially high.

Every tax proposed here will hit the poor and the middle class hard. Add to that the fact that they are trying to shape public habits through taxation.

Yup, common people of New York, the Democrats love you guys!

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