Wed - June 23, 2004

Wed - January 21, 2004

Memiors of a court jester

In this article in Washington Monthly, Mark Katz, former humor speechwriter for Bill Clinton, recalls what it was like to write jokes for the President. Even if it is blatantly opportunistic (it seems as if any contact with a President, no matter how trivial, automatically qualifies one for a publishing deal. Not surprisingly, Katz is plugging his book, titled "Clinton and Me") it's still a funny and insightful essay. If you've ever wondered what it might be like to write jokes for the President, this article satisfies that curiosity pretty well.

Katz primarily focuses on Clinton's tranformation, how he learned to use self-deprecating humor to political advantage. Clinton's natural instincts--native to Arkansas political culture and regional customs--was to be outwardly hostile, to use humor as a club to hit his enemies with. Katz describes the process of adapting Clinton's sensibility to Washington's political climate, nudging Clinton toward a more benign, self-effacing style of humor, which yielded better results.

But that's not the best part of Katz's article. A more interesting subject, which Katz includes in a brief sidebar, is the experience itself, what it's like for an ordinary person to have a conversation with the President of the United States.

...This, I would learn, is a common phenomenon among people who find themselves in a conversation with a president. They interject the words "Mr. President" into nearly every sentence, as if afflicted with a very proper strain of Tourette's syndrome. There is just something about talking to the president that makes you punctuate your sentences with the words "Mr. President." Not because he wants to hear it-he knows very well who he is--but because you just love to hear yourself say it. After all, when is the next time you'll get to say "Mr. President" in a sentence? A co-op board meeting? More than that, interjecting those words adds import to any sentence you might say. Compare these sentences:
A. Cheese sandwiches are very tasty.
B. Cheese sandwiches are very tasty, Mr. President.




This condition is only made worse by the fact that speaking to the president can also make you talkative to the point of babbling. This happens for much the same reason: you are not really talking to the president, you are listening to yourself talking to the president. Your brain, so absorbed in listening to the conversation, becomes a cognitive bystander engaged in an internal monologue that goes something like this:
I am talking to the president.
I am talking to the president.
I just said something to the president.
The president is responding to something I just said....

Read the whole thing

Posted at 04:41 PM    

Wed - December 17, 2003

Diplomacy

James Baker is getting a lot of credit for extracting an agreement from a handful of key European powers to forgive Iraqi debt. The same European figures that refused to accept or agree with, and in some cases, blocking, anything the U.S. proposed in the years and months leading up to Saddam's capture. Now they are coming together in unity to address the issue of Iraq's enormous debts, and agreeing, in principle, to dismiss them.

Baker's role here is being overstated. Here's what I think happened:




Baker takes these guys into a room, and closes the door. Then he tells them, "Look. Let me explain something to you. You're never gonna get any of that money back."

This is brilliant diplomacy?

Posted at 12:51 AM    

Sun - December 14, 2003

BREAKING NEWS: U.S. Intelligence Official Confirms that Saddam Hussein has been Captured

It's confirmed.



Time.com reports:

Saddam Hussein has been captured, TIME magazine confirmed. "It's true," said a U.S. intelligence official in Baghdad about the arrest of the former dictator. The official wouldn't give any more details except to confirm that the former dictator had been detained the night before. He did say the suspect had been positively identified as Saddam Hussein. Ambassador Paul Bremer is calling together the Iraqi Governing Council to tell them this afternoon, he said.

Celebratory gunfire erupted across Baghdad as the news of the fallen Iraqi president's arrest spread across the town. Iraqis showed their joy that the brutal leader had been detained by firing bursts of automatic weapons fire into the air.

Posted at 03:49 AM    

Fri - December 12, 2003

The New map of American Politics

If you've ever wondered why the populations of different regions of the U.S. vote the way they do, here's a map that claims to show how it works. Do your voting patterns and political inclinations reflect the zone you live in? I bet they do. Visit the map and find out.

Posted at 06:12 AM    

Thu - December 11, 2003

revealed: Nixon creeped out by Reagan

Talking politics with White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman at Camp David in August 1972, Nixon switched the conversation to two Republican governors, Reagan of California and Nelson Rockefeller of New York. Both men unsuccessfully sought the 1968 Republican presidential nomination that Nixon received.

"Reagan is not one that wears well," Nixon said.

"I know," Haldeman agreed.

"On a personal basis, Rockefeller is a pretty nice guy," Nixon said. "Reagan on a personal basis, is terrible. He just isn't pleasant to be around."

"No, he isn't," Haldeman said.

"Maybe he's different with others," Nixon said.

"No," Haldeman said.

"No, he's just an uncomfortable man to be around," Nixon said, "strange."

The conversations are part of the 240 hours of White House tape recordings from the Nixon administration released Wednesday by the National Archives. Covering the period July through October 1972, the tapes are the 10th batch of Nixon recordings, totaling 2,109 hours, that the Archives has released since 1980. In all, there are about 3,700 hours of Nixon White House tapes.

Nixon installed a secret taping system in the White House. Some of those tapes later showed a White House cover-up in connection with the 1972 break-in at Democratic National Committee headquarters in the Watergate office building.

The release of those tapes, which Nixon fought all the way to the Supreme Court, eventually led to his resignation in 1974 rather than face almost-certain impeachment and conviction.

The popular Reagan later served two terms as president. But like Nixon, Reagan had a scandal of his own, involving trading arms to Iran for hostages and illegally aiding anti-government forces in Nicaragua.

In 1980, Nixon told Parade magazine that he had several good talks with Reagan. "I think he values my foreign policy advice," the magazine quoted Nixon as saying. "I will be available for any assistance or advice."

Nixon's advice

Reagan had corresponded with Nixon for years. When Reagan was elected president, he sought Nixon's advice.

The disgraced former president offered some suggestions for Cabinet posts and a strategy for Reagan's first few months in office, urging him not to travel abroad for the first six months of his administration so he could concentrate on the economy rather than foreign policy. Nixon also pushed for his former chief of staff, Gen. Alexander Haig Jr., as Reagan's secretary of state.

Later, Nixon said Reagan's economic policies were unduly harsh and cautioned against giving him too much credit for winning the Cold War. "Communism would have collapsed anyway," he told Monica Crowley, a Nixon aide in his last years, according to her 1996 book, "Nixon Off the Record."

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland (AP) -- President Nixon didn't think much of fellow Californian and Republican icon Ronald Reagan, calling him "strange" and not "pleasant to be around," newly released White House tapes show....

Posted at 06:53 AM    

Mon - December 8, 2003

Sat - December 6, 2003

Thu - November 27, 2003

Bush visits troops in Baghdad

Posted at 06:00 PM    

our turkey: secret source revealed

Posted at 03:15 PM    

Wed - November 26, 2003

neil bush and china

The firm is backed by the son of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin.

Marshall Davis Brown, the lawyer, suggested Mr Bush had "not a lot of demonstrable business experience that would bring about a company investing $2m in you".

"I personally would object to the assumption that they're investing $2m in me," Mr Bush replied.

He said has was acting as a consultant for the company and sitting on its board of directors.

He added that he had not yet received stock from Grace.

Reuters said that Grace, Mr Bush and Mr Bush's divorce lawyer declined to comment or were unavailable.

George W Bush's brother Neil outlined business deals and admitted to sexual liaisons with strangers in his divorce proceedings, a news agency has said.

He also said he had sex with women in Asia who had come to his hotel room. He said they had not asked to be paid.




"It was very unusual," Mr Bush said in response to a lawyer's question.

note to neil: just because they didn't ask you to pick up the tab doesn't mean they didn't get paid.

In the divorce proceedings, Sharon Bush's lawyer pressed him on why a semiconductor firm would offer him $2m in stock. Mr Bush signed a contract with Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp in August 2002. Neil Bush was to receive $2m in stock options from a semiconductor firm despite having no education in the field, he told the court in March...

Posted at 05:36 PM    

Fri - November 21, 2003