Amazingly, the “Grant’s Tomb” theme from yesterday continues here at words mean things, with Michael Kinsley’s darkly funny intro to his entry in a gathering storm of “Bush lied” stories.
“Linguists note that the question, ‘Who lied in George Bush’s State of the Union speech’ bears a certain resemblance to the famous conundrum, ‘Who is buried in Grant’s Tomb?'”
Isn’t it funny how the same people who said of Clinton, “It’s not what he did, it’s that he lied about it,” are now trying every linguistic and political trick in the book to absolve GWB of responsibility for his own speech. And I must admit, it’s satisfying seeing Capt. Bush of the ship Personal Responsibility being hoisted by his own petard.
Man, there was some large vocabulary used in that. I’m surprised I understood it. But, uh.. I just wanna say, don’t rag on Bush, he’s done us good.
I remember driving around Chicago with my (former) friend Dave who 1) had no sense of direction and 2) had no sense. In no time we found ourselves smack dab in the near south side of Chicago. After driving around burned-out buildings, hacked-up cars and groups of guys warming their hands around tin drum fires for twenty minutes or so, I finally got Dave to ask for directions at a rusty old gas station with chicken wire and bullet proof glass over the service window.
Dave stuck his head near the 2″ gap at the bottom of the window and asked a kind-looking middle-aged black woman, “Excuse me miss, but could you tell us where we are?”
She looked Dave up and down (he was 6’4″, 250 pounds of blond haired blue eyed corn-fed farm boy), whistled and said, “Boy, you in the wrong neighborhood.”
And that’s exactly where you are.