posted on June 26, 2004 04:18:29 AM new
Since Clinton seems to be a popular topic of the right here on the board, I though some of you might find this funny. It's not as long as it seems and is a good read. Sort of a blast from the past (1988 to be exact):
PUT UP OR SHUT UP; AND STOP THOSE LIPS
Mike Royko, Chicago Tribune, Nov 3, 1988
My conservative friend Grump looked alarmed. He stared at my face for several seconds, then said: "What's wrong with you? Have you developed a twitch?"
Nothing is wrong with me.
"Then why are you wiggling your lips that way?"
I wasn't wiggling my lips. I was speaking to you.
"But you weren't saying anything."
Of course I was. And if you read my lips, you would have understood.
"Read your lips? I can't read lips."
I'm sorry, but I thought all Republicans could read lips. I mean, George Bush is always saying "read my lips," so I assumed that this was a common Republican skill.
"You don't understand. He says that for emphasis, to drive home a point, to make sure that people understand that he means what he says.'"
Ah, I understand. When he says: "Read my lips: no new taxes," he wants us to make no mistake about it - there will be no new taxes when he is in the White House.
"Exactly. Now, what were you trying to say when you were wiggling your lips at me?"
What I was saying was: Read my lips, I want to make a bet with you.
"What kind of bet."
Read my lips: I want to make a big bet.
"How big a bet?"
Read my lips: I want to bet $5,000.
"That is a considerable sum. And what is it you wish to bet on?"
Read my lips. I will bet you $5,000 that George Bush is feeding us a line.
"Be careful. I will not tolerate any insults directed at our Pollster-Designated Commander-in-Chief."
Don't change the subject. Are you a betting man or aren't you?
"You haven't even said what we will be betting on."
All right. Read my lips. I bet you five Big Ones that if George Bush becomes president, our taxes will go up.
"Just one moment. He didn't say taxes wouldn't go up. He said no new taxes."
Don't play word games, Grump. If taxes go up, the increase is new. So any tax increase amounts to new taxes.
"What you're saying, in your usually crude way, is that George Bush is not being sincere."
Read my lips: He's flat-out lying.
"By George, if it weren't illegal, I'd toss my glove in your face and challenge you to a duel."
Never mind. Are you going to take the bet or aren't you?
"Betting is illegal."
So is selling weapons to the ayatollah. Come on Grump, Columbus took a chance.
"How do you intend to structure this bet?"
We will each come up with 5 Gs, cash money. We'll put it in an interest-bearing escrow account. Then we will wait. If, after four years, there is no tax increase, you win. If there is a tax increase - which is a sure thing - I win.
"Taxes are a complex matter. Sometimes a tax increase isn't really an increase at all, but in economic theory, it is a decrease."
Read my lips: We'll know if it is an increase. But to be certain, we will jointly select a neutral tax expert. Or even a panel of experts. And we will let them decide if a tax increase really is a tax increase.
"I'll have to think about it."
Think about it? Grump, read my lips: You are chicken.
"I don't have to tolerate insults."
Read my lips: You are worse than chicken. You are a quail, which is a tiny chicken.
"I think I should get odds. How about 2 to 1?"
I was right. You are a quail.
"Enough. Yes, there will be new taxes. But it will be the fault of the Democrats in Congress."
Read my lips: That isn't what Bush has been saying. He's been saying: Read my lips: no new taxes. So let's not start making excuses before the dirty deed is even done.
"I don't have to listen to this scurrilous bilge. Keep your bet. I have better things to do."
Yes, you can put up some more Willie Horton posters.
"Goodbye, you pinko."
With that, Grump was gone. But I haven't given up.
Read my lips: Any Republican out there who wants to cover my bet, just give me a call. It will prove you aren't a quail.
Just a pigeon.
*******************
My, how things haven't changed. I believe instead of pinko, we're now being called un-American or anti-American.
posted on June 26, 2004 04:54:13 AM new
The double talking is the point here, twelve. And the fact that the right is still thinking the same as it did back in '88. Not whether the current president said, "Read my lips".
Oh, brother. No sense of humor on a Saturday morning?
posted on June 26, 2004 05:19:06 AM new
You won't get my dander up today. I'm going to the Scottish Games to watch men in kilts throwing telephone poles. I'm supposed to wear mine (kilt, that is), but NO ONE will get me to wear wool when it's going to be 77 and sunny outside! Unless, that is, they like to watch someone madly scratching themselves. LOL!
posted on June 26, 2004 05:21:35 AM new
You know what was really funny was when George Bush Sr. said Pearl Harbor day was September 7th and not December 7th.....
Oh wait that is said that a person gets those dates confused. I wonder if Bush Jr will get confused on his dates and say 9/11 happened 11/9.
However I really enjoyed when Bush Sr. threw-up on the foreign dignitary. Now that was a riot.
Re-defeat Bush
------------------------------
June is Gay Pride Month
------------------------------
All animals are created equal, but some are more equal than others.
Change is constant. The history of mankind is about change. One set of beliefs is pushed aside by a new set. The old order is swept away by the new. If people become attached to the old order, they see their best interest in defending it. They become the losers. They become the old order and in turn are vulnerable. People who belong to the new order are winners.
James A Belaco & Ralph C. Stayer
Vice President Dick Cheney shouted "#*!@ you!" at inoffensive Senator Patrick Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, at a photo opportunity on the Senate floor earlier this week. On Friday he told Fox Cable News, "I expressed myself rather forcefully, felt better after I had done it."
Now, it seems to me that the Senate floor is public space, paid for by the public. And in this regard, there is no difference between it and the public airwaves, which the public also owns.
We know what the Republicans in the Senate think about the use of obscenities on the airwaves. The Federal Communications Commission under the chairmanship of Michael Powell, son of the secretary of state, has waged a campaign of harassment and persecution against broadcasters who use colorful language on the airwaves, especially Howard Stern. Clear Channel dropped Stern and had to pay $1.75 million in fines for his and other infractions. The Republican-controlled Senate even attached a rider to a defense bill (!) raising the fine for a single infraction from $27,500 to $275,000. What I take away from all this is that the Republicans in the Senate are against using the word "#*!@" in public spaces of discourse, owned by the public.
Personally, I think people who don't want to hear Howard Stern should change the channel. The one thing Reagan was right about is that there are areas where we should get the Federal government off our backs. Speaking as we please is one of them, and Jefferson and Madison thought so, too. If the Powell FCC is going to take public ownership of the airwaves so seriously, then it should restore them to us and take them away from the corporations to whom it is has given them away for practically nothing. They used at least to offer us something like real news in return for this gift, worth trillions, but now some of them take our airwaves and use them to feed us propaganda by persons dressed like news anchors but who are actually professional spinmeisters.
Howard Stern no doubt feels better when he gets some blue language off his chest, too. So I propose that Mr. Cheney be made to pay $275,000 for fouling the air of the Senate in the way that he did. Should he feel the need to feel good again, he should be aware that the second offense in the Senate bill costs $500,000.
And, I propose that the fine go to vocational training for the disadvantaged people that Cheney has made a career of stomping all over.
posted on June 26, 2004 07:00:06 AM new
Helen, I wonder how that looks to all those holier-than-thou religious Righties? But something tells me they'll twist it around and it'll be Clinton's fault...after all, HE had an affair so it's OK to talk like that if you're the Vice-President.
DICK Cheney....look to him for "christian" values!
posted on June 26, 2004 07:26:04 AM new
Gee, Linda, weren't you one of those on Kerry's case a bit back for swearing at a secret service agent? IIRC, in that instance no excuse would serve. It was a big no no. So is it OK for Cheney to do it?
____________________
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy
posted on June 26, 2004 07:38:53 AM new
Ya, bunni, it was the other guy's fault...he tried to be pleasant! That scurvy bas---!
No room for polite discourse with DICK Cheney when a quick "F--- You" is so much easier.
posted on June 26, 2004 07:48:16 AM new
I understand that Pres. Clinton was pretty good at lip reading. In fact he was so good at it that he should have become a gynecologist instead of a politician.
posted on June 26, 2004 07:48:59 AM new
I read Linda's link and Cheney comes off sounding like a idiot. Well, ah, hmmm, I dunno no. LOL! His explanation and lack of apology was pretty bad.
. . .CAVUTO: Where is all that stuff now? Where are all those?
CHENEY: Well, we destroyed the facility when we went in and...
posted on June 26, 2004 08:25:31 AM new
Re: Yellowstones post,
I told ya so....I pulled the strings and the clinton haters responded....Cheney's bad temper and obnoxious, nasty disposition has to have SOMETHING to do with Clinton???!!!????
posted on June 26, 2004 08:30:02 AM new
No surprise there.
____________________
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy
posted on June 26, 2004 08:30:21 AM new
SSHHH! If you listen you can hear Linda googling like crazy trying to find every naughty word a Democrat has used in the last 100 years!
posted on June 26, 2004 08:31:56 AM new
bunni - I find it laughable that the left, while approving of such language, now wants to use it against Cheney.
posted on June 26, 2004 08:37:53 AM new
bunni, I find it laughable that the "religious" "christian" Right touts "family values" but thinks it's OK to use language like that on the Senate floor because they think the left approves.
posted on June 26, 2004 08:40:56 AM new bunni - I find it laughable that the left, while approving of such language, now wants to use it against Cheney.
The hypocracy or "double standard" as you call it is actually coming from the right: seems it's OK when Cheney curses someone, but not if Kerry does it?!?
And Cheney sets himself up as this model man, with high values--but if someone makes a critical statement about the profits he'smaking through his Haliburton connections, he blithely tells them to "go F@#%" themselves. And the right seems to feel that this is OK although Kerry got criticized up the ying yang for cursing at a secret service agent.
Yep, there's a double standard alright...
____________________
We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy
posted on June 26, 2004 10:59:15 AM new
OOOHHHHH linda!
Was that clever or what????
When backed into a corner :
Do not address the issue....make fun of the person's looks.....
linda, shame on you...after all, I have never made fun of bush's squinty used-car-saleman's eyes or the way he looks like he's going to burst into giggles over the war or how, after telling the world how terrible are the bad guys and how we have to fight "terism" he immediately is concerned with his golf swing.
Now, if I don't make fun of that moronic puppet you shouldn't make fun of some one especially some one who actually showed up for the war.
posted on June 26, 2004 12:11:07 PM new
[laughing and shaking my head here]
When backed into a corner :
Do not address the issue
Exactly WHAT issue have I not addressed here. bunni make an incorrect ?? to me and I provided my proof.
....make fun of the person's looks
really? And here I thought it was Billy Crystal that make that teasing joke...not me.
.....
linda, shame on you [i] shame on your reading abilities, I'd say.
...after all, I have never made fun of bush's squinty used-car-saleman's eyes
you haven't??? Well, I have.
or the way he looks like he's going to burst into giggles over the war another one of your made up stories.
or how, after telling the world how terrible are the bad guys and how we have to fight "terism" he immediately is concerned with his golf swing.
LOL - Think you might just have him confused with the past president who played golf all the time.
Now, if I don't make fun of that moronic puppet you shouldn't make fun of some one especially some one who actually showed up for the war.
Yea, it's just that I would never vote a man like kerry into office.....one who has put his own country's democracy down and sided with the communists during the Vietnam war. I'd like to see a man that has convictions that side with his own country, rather than our enemies.
posted on June 26, 2004 12:39:18 PM new
linda says,"I'd like to see a man that has convictions that side with his own country, rather than our enemies."
So, you'd rather side with bush who, unlike Kerry, never went and fought "our enemies" at all!!!....linda...wasn't THAT siding with the enemy?
