Scandalous Bush News...

On Fox news they did a report on the "secretly recorded tapes" that a former Bush friend and associate recorded. The anchor asked the reporter, "What do you think this means for President Bush?" The reporter (Greg Kelly?) said (paraphrasing), "Nothing much will hurt the president. After listening to the tapes, I'd say he says the same things in private as he does in public."

I wish I had the exact quote, but the drift of it is there. When I heard the different subjects that had been recorded I thought, "Oh damn... here we go. He stuck his foot in it somehow." Nope. He is who he is and he doesn't change. I like a guy who says the same thing in private as he says in public. I think that's perhaps why he won the election. I think people knew that was true of Pres. Bush, but they had a sneaking suspicion that Sen. Kerry was a different guy depending on the situation he was in. I think the same is true of Al Gore. Now... I actually get the impression that, the occasional human weakness/overdeveloped appetite aside, Bill Clinton is authentic.

OK... and there's the lying under oath thing, and the parsing of "is", but I mean--and I'm not kidding--ASIDE from that, there was something that seemed authentic about him. I think he REALLY cared, and mostly meant what he said at least in that arena. I know... the more I think about it, the less sense it makes. Sorry. I like the guy personally. Always have. Four guys in the room... Clinton, Bush, Gore, and Kerry... you get to pick two to hang out with for a day. I'm picking Clinton and Bush without question. And not just because they're winners. I think they're winners BECAUSE most of us would pick those two out of the four.

Frankly, I wouldn't let Gore stay in the room. I used to be a fan, but the persona he's adopted since 9/11 is sickening. You wanna talk inauthenticity for a minute? I wish someone would do an expose' about his attitude toward Iraq and Saddam from 1996 to 2000, and then would explain how AFTER 9/11 suddenly regime change is a "betrayal" and talk of WMD is a "lie". Apparently, in 1998 he was arguing for attacking... for forcing regime change. 9/11 made him more DOVISH? Thank God he lost the election! (No, I'm not saying Saddam had anything to do with 9/11. But Saddam with WMD--which reportedly he no longer had, but WAS going to reconstitute as soon as he could get sanctions lifted--and terrorists attacking us on our shores... You have got to hate the math, don't you?)