Posts Tagged ‘president’

Yesterday, Nancy came into work shaking her head in confusion and with the start of a whopper of a headache. Foolishly she’d begun her day with the radio on, listening to Bush’s press conference. I’ve mostly given those up because I’m really not attractive when I’m purple with rage, screaming at the radio regarding both the content and delivery.

Regardless, since he rarely deigns to speak to journalists it’s not usually an issue.

Still, Nancy tried, good citizen that she is, to listen to our president. She was a little vague, trying to explain what he’d said but given that Bush doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Nancy can hardly be blamed for not being able to be the explainer for our decider.

So I did some homework and tracked down a transcript .

Look, he’s not a banker, right? I get that. So when he tries to explain the mortgage mess, I can sort of, almost, kind of semi-forgive this sort of waffling:

First, let me talk about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. A lot of people in the country probably don’t understand how important they are to the mortgage markets. And it’s really important for people to have confidence in the mortgage markets and that there be stability in the mortgage markets. And that’s why Secretary Paulson announced the plan this weekend, which says that he needs authorities from the Congress to come up with a line of credit for these institutions, if needed, and that he ought to have the authority to invest capital, if needed.

And so the purpose was to send a clear signal that, one, we understand how important these institutions are to the mortgage markets, and two, to kind of calm nerves. The truth of the matter is, by laying this out, it is — makes it less likely we’ll need to use this kind of authority to begin with, which, by the way, is temporary authority.

Well, thanks for clearing that up, Mr. President!

Let’s see…it’s important. And I should have confidence. And you might have just assumed (yet more) new powers to uh…temporarily give them money, but you probably won’t have to do that?

I now know EXACTLY how Fannie/Freddie work! (Actually, I do, because I spent 10 years working in mortgages but had to get out of the industry because I could feel my soul being sucked from my body. But that’s a story for another day.)

Doing the ol’ soft shoe number on banking is one thing. But you’re an OIL MAN, fer godsakes! Okay, true, not a good one. But you should still know that the price of oil is what determines the price of gas, not the other way around…

Honestly! If this man is going to sound confident and well informed about ANY topic in the entire world, shouldn’t it have been this one?

Well, judge for yourself. I’m going to have an adult beverage and wait for it to be over:

So today’s the Louisiana primary. We weren’t supposed to matter- we never matter. I’ve never actually lived in a state where, from a primary standpoint, the game wasn’t over by the time it was our turn.

We had a very civic-minded day, actually. First it was Alison’s mock-trial scrimmage at the big courthouse on Poydras. Since it’s essentially a big argument, she did all too well, natch.

It was from there to the polling place, where I had a little crisis of confidence. I really REALLY wanted to vote for Hillary. Months ago, anyway. You know…before.

Before all the sort of iffy, racial sounding comments. Before the nastiness. Before her husband went off the frigging rails, fer godsakes! Bill! Dude! Suck it up! Your wife managed to hold it together in public when you couldn’t button your fly- try looking like an ex-president and not like a petulant snot whydontcha?!

I considered going down to listen to him speak yesterday, cause, well, you know how it is. Every time I hear Bush speaking I sigh wistfully and think about what it was like when we had a president who was…oh…I don’t know…coherent, for a start. Seeing this new and not-so-improved Bill is just sad.

Plus, when I read the coverage of the event, it’s clear where this region’s vote is going anyway. Obama had a 500 person overflow at his event. Bill/Hill couldn’t fill the place. She didn’t even show up, just sent him, and he got kinda pissy. Said we ‘owed’ her, so we’d better pay up.

That was the nail in the coffin. I was about 95% sure I was pushing the Obama button, but that did it. Still feels a little like I broke up with the Clintons. Sorry, guys, I guess I just need some space.

The scarier thing was that there was a short column in the paper about how Huckabee could take the other side of the aisle. That man scares the bejabbers out of me.