Reassurance-Op
Is it just me, or does anyone else find this swaggering confidence on the part of the President less than reassuring?
I take this issue very seriously," he [Bush] said. "The people of the country ought to rest assured that we're doing everything we can.
[Gardiner Harris, "Fear of Flu Outbreak Rattles Washington", New York Times, 5 October 2005.]
It doesn't really matter, of course, what it is that he's talking about, although the topic in this case was a briefing about a possible outbreak among humans of avian flu.
Elsewhere in the same article,
"No one in the world is ready for it," Mr. Leavitt [Secretary of Health and Human Services] said. "But we're more ready today than we were yesterday. And we'll be more prepared tomorrow than we are today."
Now this I can easily translate as Bush League speak for To the extent that we're prepared, we're ready.
In: All, Common-Place Book, Plus Ca Change...
One Response
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Subscribe to comments via RSS
Leave a Reply
To thwart spam, comments by new people are held for moderation; give me a bit of time and your comment will show up.
I welcome comments -- even dissent -- but I will delete without notice irrelevant, rude, psychotic, or incomprehensible comments, particularly those that I deem homophobic, unless they are amusing. The same goes for commercial comments and trackbacks. Sorry, but it's my blog and my decisions are final.
on Thursday, 6 October 2005 at 18.54
Permalink
The operative question for Bush's moves and statements, I've found, is, "Why this and why now?"
One would like to believe it's as simple as this: Should some poor soul in this country turn up with avian flu in the coming weeks or months, Bush wants to be on record as being aware of the potential danger and at work on it. In other words, no more appearing brain-dead and flat-footed, as he did in the crucial first days after Katrina blasted through and levees failed.
More cyncically, the motive may be as much or more that Bush and the Forces of Darkness™ controlling D.C. want to divert or scatter attention from the the bad-news stories about them and their results that are coming thick and fast.