THE WIT AND WISDOM OF PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH

Bush on Presidential Candidate Hillary Clinton: "Wait till her fat ass is sitting at this desk."

Bush on Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin: "I'm trying to remember if I've met her before. I'm sure I must have. What is she, the governor of Guam?"

Bush on President Barack Obama: "This is a dangerous world, and this cat isn't remotely qualified to handle it. This guy has no clue, I promise you."

(From the book "Speech-Less, Tales of a White House Survivor" by Matt Latimer, former speech writer to the president.)

QUOTATIONS OF THE DAY

"As the father of four children, I am absolutely appalled that taxpayer dollars are being used to spread President Obama's socialist ideology."

-- Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer.


"I can't understand for the life of me what's so great about being stupid."

-- President George H. W. Bush in his 1991 live televised speech to the schoolchildren of America.

GOD BLESS AMERICA, AGAIN

This is scary stuff.

It's a passage from "A Clash of Camelots" -- by Sam Kashner, in the current issue of "Vanity Fair" -- about how William Manchester researched and wrote his book "The Death of a President." I hope it doesn't foreshadow our own time.

Manchester... discovered that Dallas “had become the Mecca for medicine-show evangelists … the Minutemen, the John Birch and Patrick Henry Societies, and the headquarters of [ultra-conservative oil billionaire] H. L. Hunt and his activities.”

“In that third year of the Kennedy presidency,” Manchester wrote, “a kind of fever lay over Dallas country. Mad things happened. Huge billboards screamed, ‘Impeach Earl Warren.’ Jewish stores were smeared with crude swastikas.…Radical Right polemics were distributed in public schools; Kennedy’s name was booed in classrooms; corporate junior executives were required to attend radical seminars.” A retired major general ran the American flag upside down, deriding it as “the Democrat flag.” A wanted poster with J.F.K.’s face on it was circulated, announcing “this man is Wanted” for—among other things—“turning the sovereignty of the US over to the Communist controlled United Nations” and appointing “anti-Christians … aliens and known Communists” to federal offices. And a full-page advertisement had appeared the day of the assassination in The Dallas Morning News accusing Kennedy of making a secret deal with the Communist Party; when it was shown to the president, he was appalled. He turned to Jacqueline, who was visibly upset, and said, “Oh, you know, we’re heading into nut country today.”

Manchester discovered that in a wealthy Dallas suburb, when told that President Kennedy had been murdered in their city, the students in a fourth-grade class burst into applause.

THE WISDOM OF JAMES INHOFE

U.S. Senator James Inhofe held a town hall meeting in Grove, Oklahoma, this week. Here is some of what he had to say.

• On President Barack Obama: "I never dreamed I would see an administration try to disavow all the things that have made this country different from all the others."
• On America: "I have never seen so many things happening at one time so disheartening to America."
• On institutions: "Every institution that has made this country the greatest nation in the world is under attack."
• On the "hoax" of global warming: "More and more, with each month that goes by, more scientists agree with me. We are winning."
• On Guantanamo: "There has never been a case of torture there. The people there are treated better than in the federal prisons."
• On terrorism: "I don't know why President Obama is obsessed with turning terrorists loose in America."
• On national defense: "Barack Obama is disarming America."
• On the future: "Those of you who think like I do hope that this country can hang on another 16 months."

HEALTH CARE MADE SIMPLE

This letter so simplifies American health care that I am compelled to reprint part of it. A Sarah Stringfellow wrote it to the editor of Salt Lake City's "Deseret News," which published it on Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009.

"If you are a veteran or Native American, you receive health care as if you lived under the British national system.

"If you have employer-provided health insurance, it is as if you lived in Germany.

"If you receive medicare, it is similar to the the Canadian 'single-payer' system.

"If you are one of the 50 million uninsured Americans, it is as if you lived in Burundi or Burma, where you either pay cash or get sick and die."

QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"While my body was asleep, I think my soul rode on a triangular-shaped UFO and went to Venus. It was a very beautiful place and it was really green."

-- Japanese First Lady Miyuki Hatoyama in her book, "Very Strange Things I've Encountered."