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Hornswaggle is an alternate spelling of hornswoggle, an archaic word that means to bamboozle or hoodwink. I take my pronunciation from the late Harvey Korman in "Blazing Saddles" -- "I want rustlers, cutthroats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, conmen, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswagglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass kickers, shit kickers and Methodists!" |
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Tuesday, February 10, 2004Meet the Press-ident with the big bag under his left eyeI watched two things this weekend so that you didn't have to: George W. Bush and Tim Russert from the Oval Office on "Meet the Press" and the NFL Pro Bowl. The latter, it turns out, was a great game, and I have a big football post upcoming. Two quick notes on that interview, however, with more to come in a bit. When Bush is talking about the deficit and trying to defend his policies against a General Accounting Office report that the White House's tax less and spend more fiscal policies are unsustainable (whunh? you don't say), why doesn't he just come out and say that tax cuts on the rich actually increase tax revenues, if he really is a believer in supply-side economics. That is, after all, the bogus assertion underlying supply-side economics, one that many of the individuals formulating Bush's tax policies and numerous conservative pundits (including Ann Coulter) believe to be true. Why doesn't he come out and say it? Oh right. Because he would be ridiculed. Second, he addressed his service in the National Guard, claiming that he wouldn't have gotten an honorable discharge if he hadn't served to the fullest. Two quick debunkings of that pronouncement: One, Scott Cohen (looking for the link) wrote an article in the Washington Post detailing how he went AWOL from the Guard during the same time frame and still got an honorable discharge. Second, Bush had major political connections through his father, the same connections that allowed him to leap frog the snaking line and get into the Guard in the first place. Bush made a clumsy attempt at a diversion, when he warned his political opponents not to denigrate the fine people of the National Guard. No one is denigrating the Guard. We're denigrating you for not serving in it, o wrinkly smirker. The White House has released some records on Bush's service. Joshua Marshall of Talking Points Memo has the deets. The one thing that jumps out at you, that the media isn't really fastening on, is that none of these records really explain what happened during his time in Alabama, where it continues to be Bush's word (I showed up) against the Alabama National Guard's (No, you really didn't). There's still no indication that I can see that he ever showed up there when he applied for, was denied and then eventually got a transfer, so that he could work on a political campaign. In fact, my understanding is that he took off from Texas prior to the transfer order being okay'd. Calpundit seems to have the best breakdown on all of this. I would trollop over there for the most thorough examination of all the available records. .: posted by hornswaggler 12:22 PM| |
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