First do no harm

Yesterday, Obama gave yet another speech on the economy. Not that he had anything new to say, but he did have a nifty Bible story.

DUE TO THE RECESSION, ALL THE WHITE HOUSE POETS HAVE BEEN LAID OFF: “This is going to be prose, and not poetry.”

WELL, WE COULD CUT UP THE KITCHEN TABLE FOR FIRE WOOD: “You see, when this recession began, many families sat around the kitchen table and tried to figure out where they could cut back.”

I THOUGHT IT WAS, FIRST COLLECT THE CO-PAY: “Governments should practice the same principle as doctors: First, do no harm.”


FRUSTRATING OBAMA FOR FUN AND PROFIT: “I promise you, nobody is more frustrated than me with AIG”. Then he explained why he was still giving them lots of money.

OH GOODY, A PARABLE: “Now, there’s a parable at the end of the Sermon on the Mount that tells the story of two men. The first built his house on a pile of sand, and it was soon destroyed when a storm hit. But the second is known as the wise man, for when ‘the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house, it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock.’ It was founded upon a rock. We cannot rebuild this economy on the same pile of sand. We must build our house upon a rock.” So if I understand this correctly, we’re switching to a rock-based economy.

DEATH RAYS FOR EVERYONE! “And, by the way, one of the changes that I would like to see -- and I’m going to be talking about this in weeks to come -- is once again seeing our best and our brightest commit themselves to making things -- engineers, scientists, innovators.” So if I understand this correctly, we’re switching to a mad-scientist based economy.

“MAKE NO MISTAKE” IS THE NEW “IN OTHER WORDS”: “So make no mistake, health care reform is entitlement reform.”

ON THE TELEPROMPTER? “But from where we stand, for the very first time, we’re beginning to see glimmers of hope.”