Wise policy helps keep us resilient

George Bush fired up his taxpayer-financed airplane today and flew to Indiana for a couple of hours to have lunch and give a speech about fiscal responsibility.

His word of the day: resilient. As in, “we’re a resilient economy.”

How resilient? “Just a few weeks after the terrorist attacks of September the 11th, 2001, our economy was growing. Think about that. After the worst attack on American soil, where nearly 3,000 of our citizens died, this economy recovered. That’s a resilient economy.” And what do we need to maintain this resiliosity? More terrorist attacks? Evidently not. “Wise policy helps keep us resilient; lousy policy will hurt the ability for this economy to grow.” To recap: wise policy is wise, lousy policy is lousy.


AND IN THE TIME MY SPEECHWRITERS SPENT PLAYING WITH THEIR CALCULATORS...: “Over five years, their proposed spending spree adds up to an extra $205 billion. Put another way, that’s about $1,300 in higher spending every second, of every minute, of every hour, of every day, of every year for the next five years. Think about what it means for you. If you’re driving a half hour to visit your grandparents, Congress would have spent an extra $2.3 million. If you attend church for an hour, Congress will tally another $4.7 million. If you watch a football game, Congress would rack up $14 million -- unless, of course, it goes into overtime.” So, as I understand it, we could balance the budget if we just stopped visiting our grandparents, attending church and watching football games.


WHAT WE NEED AND WHAT WE DON’T NEED: “We don’t need members of Congress telling our military commanders what to do. We need our military commanders telling us what to do so we can win the war against these extremists and radicals.” Civilian rule is for sissies; just ask Gen. Musharraf.

MAKING ADVICE: “If you’ve got somebody in harm’s way, you want the President being -- making advice, not -- be given advice by the military, and not making decisions based upon the latest Gallup poll or focus group.”

A SPECIAL GUEST IN OTHER WORDS: “And here’s what [Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England] wrote: He said delaying could have this kind of quote -- in other words, what Congress is trying to do -- some in Congress are trying to delay spending this money. ... And here’s what the Deputy Secretary said. He said, it would have ‘a profoundly negative impact on the defense civilian workforce, depot maintenance, base operations, and training activities.’ In other words, there’s a consequence for not funding this money.”

“Congress’s responsibility is clear: It should not go home for the Christmas holidays without giving our troops on the front line the funds they need to succeed.” And maybe an iPod. By the way, how many “Christmas holidays” are there?

Then he returned to the White House and, um, he, um... CAPTION CONTEST!