CURRENT MOON

Friday, October 13, 2006

Unacceptable


WaPo has an article concerning the increasing frequency with which the boyking has been peppering his speeches and impromptu speechifications with the word "unacceptable: Bush Confounded by the 'Unacceptable'
President Wields Word More Freely as His Frustration Rises and His Influence Ebbs. President Bush finds the world around him increasingly "unacceptable. . . . [A] survey of transcripts from Bush's public remarks over the past seven years shows the president's worsening political predicament has actually stoked, rather than diminished, his desire to proclaim what he cannot abide. Some presidential scholars and psychologists describe the trend as a signpost of Bush's rising frustration with his declining influence. . . . Using such a categorical term is not that surprising after a policy setback, according to Steven Kull, a political psychologist who directs the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes. Some people deal with failures, Kull said, "by intensifying an authoritarian posture and insisting that their preferences are equivalent to a moral imperative." . . . Mois Nam, the editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine, said there is a relationship between "how strident and extreme" the language of many leaders is and how limited their options are. For Bush, Nam said, "this comes at a time when the world is convinced he is weaker than ever."

Many foreigners think the United States is losing Iraq and are no longer in awe of U.S. military might, Nam said, and at home, Bush is so weak that Republican candidates are wary of appearing with him. "The world has noticed," Nam said. "What is happening is that a lot that was deemed unacceptable [by Bush] now has become normal and tolerable."

Bush's proclamations are not the only rhetorical evidence of his mounting frustrations. One of his favorite verbal tics has long been to instruct audiences bluntly to "listen" to what he is about to say, as in "Listen, America is respected" (Aug. 30) or "Listen, this economy is good" (May 24). This year, he made that request more often than he did in a comparable portion of 2005, a sign that he hasn't given up hope it might work.


Dear President Fuckwit,

You want "unacceptable"? Really? You like that word? Good; let me give you a list of things that are really fucking unacceptable;

Stealing elections
Subverting the Constitution
Imagining that the president is a king
Coming to debates wired because you're too fucking stupid to handle it on your own
Using the deaths of 3,000 people on September 11, 2001 to hype up fear for your own political purposes
Ignoring all the warning signs that led up to September 11, 2001
Allowing New Orleans to be destroyed and doing nothing to fix it
Your choices for SCOTUS -- mega "unacceptable"
Ignoring global climate change and global warming
Stealing habeas corpus
Torture
Lying about torture
So-called faith-based initiatives
Using the Schiavo tragedy for your own political gain
Spending most of your time in office on vacation
Embarrassingssing us every time you go abroad or have a foreign leader here to visit
Grabbing Prime Minister Merkel
Preventing NASA from collecting information on global climate change
Emptying our treasury into Haliburton's get-away car
Your choice for UN representative
Your choice for VP
Your choices for Secretary of State
The corruption that has been the hallmark of your administration
Signing statements
Lying us into a war you couldn't even begin to hope to prosecute
Your ties to Enron
What you did to California
No Child Left Behind
Abstinence "education"
Tax cuts for the Paris Hilton's of the world
Trying to steal Social Security checks from little old ladies
Betraying the oath that you've taken twice to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America
You. You are fucking unacceptable. So if you want to give speeches about whunacceptableptble, I suggest that you take Saddam's pistol and go stand in front of the fucking mirror.

2 comments:

Anne Johnson said...

You've made my day. I recently severed all ties with the livelihood I'd followed for 20 years. After 2004 the expectations for the job became exponentially harder and the pay plummeted (they figured we were trained, and stuck, so we'd adapt). At the same time, the project was outsourced to an understaffed little agency that expected perfection from all of us old-timers. Inevitably, I made some mistakes and was told they were "unacceptable."

Oh, if only I could go into more detail about this! I quit on the spot and became a lowly substitute teacher to try to make up for some of the lost income.

It's good to know that "unacceptable" got thrown at me by someone who was frustrated by her own circumstances. I know it's not right to be vindictive, and I try hard not to harbor ill will toward those folks, but I did love my job - until they came along.

Come to think of it, I loved this country - until HE came along.

H - Check out Nachtchat's latest. It's beautiful.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Hecate.
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