Speaking of Bill Maher...
Found on another mailing list...
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/03/13/washingtonoutsiders/
New rule: You can't be a Washington outsider if you're already president.
by Bill Maher March 13, 2004
Hearing President Bush these days constantly complain about "the politicians" and John Kerry being part of a "Washington mind-set," and saying things like "I got news for the Washington crowd" is like hearing Courtney Love bitch about junkies.
"Washington insider" is by definition a function of one's proximity to the president. That's you, Mr. Bush. You're ground zero. Ever wonder, sir, why everyone stands and they play music when you enter a room? When you're given check-writing privileges by the Federal Reserve, you just might be a Washington insider.
Lemme try to explain it to you in a different way: You're not "Mr. Smith goes to Washington" -- you're the Washington part. We need a Mr. Smith to mess with you. You're not on a mission you reluctantly accepted, like the old farts in "Space Cowboys." You campaigned for this job, and now you're doing it again.
And having been the Grand Poobah for three years, it's a little late to be selling yourself as some fish-out-of-water cowboy visiting the big city on assignment. You're not McCloud, you're the grandson of a senator and the son of a president and CIA director. For 15 of the last 22 years you've had a key to the White House. The last thing that happened in Washington without the Bushes getting a piece of it was Marion Barry's crack habit. "The Exorcist" happened in Georgetown, but Satan had to run it by Jim Baker first.
So knock off the regular-guy act -- and by the way, that also goes for John Forbes Kerry, the other white meat. Two Skull and Bones preppies, these guys are, from Nantucket and Kennebunkport, who use the word "summer" as a verb and probably had monogrammed beer bongs in college.
Please, John Kerry: Stop rolling up your sleeves at campaign rallies like you're about to man a register at Costco. You're a Boston Brahmin who married not one but two eccentric heiresses -- you're not Joe Sixpack, you're Claus von Bulow. I think your current wife is great, but hello, she inherited the Heinz fortune! She's the ketchup lady! -- which explains why sometimes he's gotta smack her on the bottom to get her to come.
Look, fellas, we've got almost eight months till the election. That's a long time to hold in your gut. To pretend you're something you're not. Let's just be real and admit that finally, and unfortunately, true class warfare has come to America: Yale class of '66 vs. Yale class of '68.
- jmh
Damn you TV! I believed, from the West Wing, that the vice presidents office was in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building; but the official white house web site says that is only a ceremonial office, that the vice president's real office is in the white house proper.
My beef was 'for 15 of the last 22 years you've had a new to the white house'. I have a key to my brother's house. If he was out of the country I could go in with no trouble. I doubt the adult son of the vice president or president could go to the white house to hang out and watch TV while his dad was throwing up in Japan. And isn't the math a little fuzzy? Why isn't it 15 of the last 23 years?
Still the article is shit. Even if bush had a key to the white house, he was in private business for those years, or the governor of Texas. Hardly a Washington insider since his dad wasn't in office at that time. The last crack about class warfare: the dems could have chosen anyone they wanted. They chose a 18 year US senator (a job performed in Washington), someone who did go to Yale, someone who was rich at birth and got richer by marrying money.
Maybe we can revisit Terry Jones' poor analogy comparing the war in Iraq with tolerating a rude neighbor.
Kevin T. - VRWC
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