Nucular Shot Glasses
In a story related to an interview with George W Bush, the (some claim left leaning) NPR gave the President more credit than he deserves - probably to not embarrass him any more than he does himself. In the story1 Bush is quoted,
“If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly,”
. What the transcript2 shows is that he actually said,
“If Iran escalates its military action in Iraq to the detriment of our troops and/or innocent Iraqi people, we will respond firmly.”
Whoops. They pussy-footed that. If you listen to the actual interview3 what he said was,
“we will respond uuuuhhhh firmly”.
Now did he mean that our response will be to say “uuuuuhhhh”, but in the firmest of tones? Or did he merely mean, “we will respond uuuuuhhhh (oh, gosh darn, I can’t remember what Cheney said we were gonna do. Oh yeah!) firmly”. Probably the second.
Again from the story,
He responded to a question about the highly confident picture of Iraq painted by Vice President Dick Cheney by saying Cheney had “a glass half-full mentality.”
Oh, NPR, bastion of truth…. from the transcript,
MR. WILLIAMS: Well, another question about Vice President Cheney – he said last week that – here I’m quoting – “we’ve encountered enormous successes and we continue to have enormous successes in Iraq.” Two weeks ago you said, quote, “there hadn’t been enough success in Iraq.” So it sounds like there’s a conflicting message there.PRESIDENT BUSH: Oh, I don’t think so. I think that the vice president is a person reflecting a half-glass-full mentality, and that is he’s been able to look at – as have I, and I hope other Americans have – the fact that the tyrant was removed, 12 million people voted, there is an Iraqi constitution in place that is a model for – and unique for the Middle East.
Was he really calling Cheney optimistic? I don’t think so. I think he was calling Cheney a drunk. What is a half-glass but a shot glass and “full”? Do you really think that George is so dumb to misphrase a colloquialism or is a better explaination that he thinks Cheney is a falling down drunk? I mean, we could err on the side that George is that dumb, but where is the evidence of that? I mean he does have experience with alcholism. We should expect that he can dectect it in his second in command.
Finally, the transcript has mentions of nuclear weapons. Just what the heck are those? We know, if we have listened to the most powerful man in the country, that nucular weapons are the most dangerous things out there. No where in his speech does he mention “nuclear” weapons. Someone needs to set NPR straight and fast.
Nothing quite like a half-glass-full to make things rosier. Friggin’ full glasses halfway full got depressing.
Comment by Steve — 2/8/2007 @ 8:06 am