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Margo Howard and Martin Peretz

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from: Margo Howard

A Treasure Trove of Garbled Thoughts

Posted Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2001, at 12:49 PM ET

Dear Marty,

You know, the my-party, right-or-wrong Republicans think you and I are just a couple of loony, lefty sore losers. What they don't seem to understand is that whatever is wrong with Gore does not perforce improve Bush. Bush's mangling of the language is an embarrassment and will become an even greater one. The Europeans are already licking their chops for the time when he does finally go over there. The man is easily the most inarticulate American president ever. Yale has much to answer for. And to think that his mother and his wife have adopted literacy as their cause! Boy, if only, like charity, it had begun at home. Alas, the Bush supporters can deny it, but there really is a significant relationship between the brain, thoughts, and language. I am so tired of his partisans saying he's really smart. I offer, verbatim, a few remarks from an interview in the New York Times--a veritable treasure trove of garbled thoughts and remembered phrases:

"I don't think true history is--what you really get a picture of history until a period of time has lapsed. And so I don't worry about standing, and--yeah, it's unique. I am more interested in what he and Mom will be thinking than some kind of stand."

"The California crunch really is the result of not enough power-generating plants and then not enough power to power the power of generating plants." (Sic, sic, sic.)

Q. to Bush: "And you don't have a shy group?"
A: "No, they didn't."

"We're just going to have a lot of work. ... Redefining the role of the United States from enablers to keep the peace to enablers to keep the peace from peacekeepers is going to be an assignment."



This stuff is beyond bloopers; the guy doesn't know where he is. I cannot figure out why W.'s supporters feel they need to deny his shortcomings. They can call him a CEO-type manager if they want to, but I don't think his hand is gonna be anywhere near the tiller ... unless, of course, he starts to feel he has to edge Cheney off the stage. And speaking of "folks" who will be "helping him out," I will not even repeat it, but I find the phrase that is now essentially James Baker's middle name to be loathsome. You don't have to be a Zionist to know there's something wrong with this mindset in anyone who comes near policy making. I'm not sure how they're gonna square their consigliore's stated views with any rational policy involving Israel.

This morning's news had a few stories to distract me from the new administration. The AP reports there are "many errors in science textbooks. ... Things like maps showing the equator passing through the southern United States and a photo of Linda Ronstadt labeled as a silicon crystal." Good luck, kids. Joan Venocchi in the Globe talks about the Elvis Farewell Tour. When he was in Boston, she says, Clinton told one woman, "I hope I didn't disappoint you." Well ... I guess that depends on what your definition of "disappoint" is. (Do you think, by the way, that Clinton will be downgraded to merely a rascal with the passage of time?) And the Straining to Pay a Compliment Award would go to Brian McGrory. He writes of the grilled pizza at a particular restaurant, "So indescribably delicious you want to lie naked on the plate with it." You ever felt that way, Marty? Me either.

XX,
Margo

the breakfast table
entries
12345678910111213141516
from: Margo Howard

A Treasure Trove of Garbled Thoughts

Posted Tuesday, Jan. 16, 2001, at 12:49 PM ET
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Margo Howard writes Slate's "Dear Prudence" column. Martin Peretz is a lecturer in social studies at Harvard and editor in chief and chairman of the New Republic.
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