Three Years of Hell to Become the Devil: Are the Anti-Bush forces really this desperate?

Heidi Bond and Ditzy Genius are both a-titter at an 'idiotic' desktop screensaver the George Bush campaign has put up on its website. Because, you see, the workers shown are holding slips of paper that are pink... y'know, pink slips... so on Bush's 'strong economy' desktop he's showing workers that.... Oh, let Ditzy tell the joke:

That's right, this is an image touting the economy and the creation of new jobs, yet the average joes in the picture are holding PINK SLIPS, the universal sign of getting canned. I don't know if these folks were actually laid off or what, but the subconcious message this picture sends is interesting indeed.

How clever. How droll. Except of course, that a 'pink slip' is just a figure of speech, a holdover from bygone ages. Very few letters of termination are written on pink paper anymore. The various-colored cards the men have are almost certainly some kind of operations card. I can't tell exactly what kind--my father would probably have a much better idea--but they're not termination notices.

Take a look at the guy on the left. He's holding a pink card, and he's got a pink and an orange one in his pocket. I suppose Ms. Bond and DG will now be telling us how stupid Bush is for putting a member of the Orange Order on his campaign site? And for showing a worker that seems to have been laid off twice? And if any of these men are actually, or even implicitly holding 'pink slips,' why are they smiling?

The "Bush is Stupid" crowd long ago outlived their usefulness, particularly when they have to make such stretches into the 'subliminal' to make their point. What they manage to do is make themselves look as petty as the last decade's Clinton-haters did.

Comments

Oh come on. You have to be joking. A couple blog posts from random law students joking about how generally clueless Bush's campaign seems to be (touting a robust economy...AND showing guys with PINK slips hahaha, or, hiring an anti-outsourcing jobs czar...who outsourced jobs! and was a political friend of Nebraska (my state) DEMOCRATIC senator Ben Nelson, not Chuck Hagel (incidently, Bush's NE Campaign chair).) those are (at least the latter) definite blunders and speak to sloppiness, incompetence, or, yes, stupidity. on somebody's part--almost certainly not Bush's, but at least his organization. those are valid comments to make--Bush was supposedly touted as the MBA President, surrounding himself with super-competent & efficient superstars from the business world. But, 3 years in, they still make all kinds of silly & careless & stupid mistakes. that's a legit criticism. Screaming about murders in Arkansas, leaving bodies on train tracks, manufacturing allegations of rape, spending millions of dollars on a pointless investigation into a tiny real estate deal (which NEVER uncovered any wrong-doing), or calling teenage Chelsea a dog (Rush)... The two aren't in the same league, not even the same sport, not even the same freaking universe. I recognize you are discussing, generally, the "bush is stupid" crowd, but still. they're _nowhere_ near that bad. Furthermore, a prominent part of Bush's campaign was his competence, his ability to surround himself with super smart, great individuals, and then Bush the uber-leader waltzes in & is the ultimate manager/CEO-Prez. Finding examples that suggest otherwise is perfectly legit. But even the worst of the Bush is dumb crowd have a long, long way to go to approach the pettiness & utter worthlessness of the last decade's Clinton-haters.

Posted by: Visible Hand | March 17, 2004 10:53 AM

Thanks to Visible Hand for summing up what I would have tried to say. I probably would not have been nearly as thorough. But hey, I'm a ditz! I do like the sarcasm about how clever and droll I am, although I disagree that I was 'a titter'. :-) I hope your semester is going well. Toodles!

Posted by: DG | March 17, 2004 11:52 AM

I think, VH, that the relative value of pettiness probably depends on whose ox is being gored. A quick Google search for "Bush Family Nazi" should turn up a number of baseless accusations, including murder. Whatever one's position on Chelsea's attractiveness, I certainly don't think Rush's comment was out of the league of the Onion, who after Jenna Bush got caught with a fake ID ran the headline, "Jenna Bush's federally protected wetlands now open for drilling." The thing is, the 'pink slip' thing isn't even that stupid. While you point to some issues that might rise to the level of strategic blunder (although they're arguable), certainly the desktop doesn't rise to the level of DG's headline: "And on the day that idiocy was redefined, we stood in awe and watched." Incidentally, if Whitewater was a 'tiny' real-estate deal, I don't suppose you could hook me up with a dozen or so of them? (The successful ones, please, I've got enough debt.) To me, the size of those investments represents some real money...

Posted by: A. Rickey | March 17, 2004 12:05 PM

Agreed, to an extent the pettiness depends on one's perspective & political preferences. What I really want to point to, tho, is the vast different in _type_ of comments. Sure, some Dems go to idiotic extremes in calling Bush stupid or incompetent. But calling Bush stupid/incompetent is a legitimate criticism--we don't want stupid/incompetent people running the government! Calling Chelsea ugly, or Hillary "Hitlerly" or inventing & hyping allegations of rape & murders & drug deals really don't have much of anything to do with a valid or legit criticism (well, sure, obviously, somebody who really DID committ murder or rape shouldn't be President, but the frothing Clinton-haters crowd just were making sh*t up). As to the Bush family Nazi thing...well, that's slightly different. Prescott Bush/his companies did have assets seized by the Government during WWII under the trading with the enemy law. There is at least some small, maybe infintesimally miniscule, possibility of a legit connection between Bush family wealth & the Nazis. Hillary Clinton has absolutely, postively, 100% no connection with Adolph Hitler. And as to Whitewater being tiny--sure, it's big bucks to you & me, but a real-estate deal of a few hundred thousand dollars is, I believe, accurately described as "tiny," especially when the subsequent 6 year + investigation into it ate up millions and millions of dollars. As to the Prescott/Trading with the enemy story, some info can be found here: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100474,00.html

Posted by: Visible Hand | March 17, 2004 12:46 PM

Anthony, you're going to have to start correctly representing people's arguments before you attack them. You point out that the workers were probably not getting canned. You equate us with the "Bush is stupid" crowd, proclaim that we have outlived our usefulness, and say that we're as petty as any Clinton hater. Notice a few things. First, neither of us said the workers were actually getting canned. It's a stupid photo of people who look like "average" workers, probably picked from a huge stock of images. The fact that people don't use pink slips anymore isn't relevant. Yeah, it's a figure of speech. But it's a common, recognized figure of speech, and it's kind of ironic that out of all the stock photographs of hard-hat wearing workers out there, they picked the one photograph where the workers are holding things that look like pink slips. This reminds people of pink slips, which, being a common figure of speech (as you point out) makes them think of lay-offs. There's a lot of pictures you can pose; they could have made a much better choice, particularly given that many of their adversaries argue that unemployment is one of Bush's main problems. We neither of us tried to make any stronger argument than that. Note how completely irrelevant your comments about "they're not getting canned" are--an anti-Bush person could easily make a picture of a worker holding a pink slip, and people would get the message. The point isn't "what happened" but what does it symbolize. If Ditzy & I noticed the pink slip, others will, too, and it undercuts the message they're trying to send. Second, neither of us claimed that Bush himself had anything to do with it. Neither of us claimed that the media should pick up on this, nor that it was a huge blunder, nor that Bush was trying to subconsciously indicate that he wanted more workers to be laid off. We never said that this was evidence that Bush was stupid; you're the one who's adding that construction after the fact so that you can make the argument look weaker. Finally, neither of us presented this as a real policy reason not to vote for Bush. This is what we're saying. Given the vast number of pictures out there, they could have picked one where the workers are not holding what many people think of as a symbol of being canned. This is ironic because many people who attack Bush do so by pointing to unemployment numbers. We did not say any more (except for Ditzy's hyperbolic headline which did not, as you suggest, say that Bush was stupid, but was talking about the use of the photograph). Stop attacking the straw man you invented and admit that they could have picked a better photograph, realize that one blog post about one online picture doth not our politics represent, and realize that posts like this, where you label people as "useless" because they make an off-hand comment about a small irony make you look rather more petty.

Posted by: Heidi | March 17, 2004 3:14 PM

Heidi: First, I didn't say you claimed it was a policy reason not to vote for Bush. Second, please see the comment by DG quoted above. If that paragraph doesn't at least imply that she thinks they might be actual pink slips, the tone didn't carry. Third, they aren't carrying things that 'look like pink slips.' They're carrying pink slips of paper. No 'pink slip' looks like that, at least not in my experience, and I'd be interested to see anyone else whose 'pink slip' was a pink piece of cardstock. In other words, you're criticizing a campaign team for having failed to avoid a picture that allows the opposition a bad pun. This is not 'stupid.' It's not even a mistake, except in the 'let's not give Jay Leno some cannon fodder' sense. True, you could make a picture of someone holding a pink slip of paper and people would get the message, but you'd have to focus on the slip, the person holding it, and his expression--the paper alone wouldn't do it. Basically, the only people likely to 'pick up on it' are people who don't like Bush anyway. That doesn't make the choice 'stupid.' It certainly isn't 'idiocy worthy of awe.' As for 'neither of us claimed it was a huge blunder,' 'a small irony' etc... are we to assume that your headline, to say nothing of DG's, is nothing but ridiculous hyperbole? DG mentions stupidity worthy of awe... but it's 'minor' now? The fact of the matter is that even if this were an error--and I think that you're holding campaign marketters to a very high standard if this is what you're saying--it's trivial in the extreme. It's the kind of thing that you have to be looking to mock before it will make sense. Not one pro or even mildly neutral Bush voter in 100 would pick up on the 'pink slip' thing, even if they did notice a desktop buried in the Bush-Cheney site. Lastly, of course, the "Bush is stupid" crowd comment isn't taken from this post in isolation. Your readers might remember such gems as: DG: It has always struck me that Bush isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, but last night I finally figured out why. It isn't just because of his poor grasp of the rules of grammar or his regular dumbfounded look. The thing that gets me about him is that he's obviously chosen to have advisors who aren't brilliant. Even the dumbest yokel can be polished and professional with the right advisors. Let's take his speechwriter for instance. Or yourself: "Why is it that it wouldn't be okay to give out personal information but it's fine to obscure it just enough so that dumb rocks and George Bush miss the information but everyone else knows what exactly it is?" Or have I missed something, and that was actually a backhanded compliment to the President?

Posted by: A. Rickey | March 17, 2004 4:58 PM

Sorry, Anthony--you don't get out by quoting other posts. You claimed that we said that this particular event was proof that Bush was dumb. We never claimed that. You made it up. Then, having asserted that we made a claim we never made, you called us useless. Pot, meet kettle.

Posted by: Heidi | March 17, 2004 5:42 PM

Fine. Perhaps I should have said, "The Bush is Stupid, and those associated with him are Stupid Too!" crowd have outlived their usefulness. Perhaps you might admit the same, seeing as 'outlived their usefulness' and 'useless' are not the same thing. Unless you'd like to say that calling Bush stupid is, in some sense, useful?

Posted by: A. Rickey | March 17, 2004 5:46 PM

Of COURSE I didn't think that they were really pink slips. I'm aware that pink slip is a figure of speech. I really didn't think that I needed to explicitly say: "I don't think they are really holding pink slips." The phrase: "I don't know if these folks were laid off" was written with tounge planted firmly in cheek. I don't have a huge network of blog readers at my humble little blog, but I'm sure the most people did pick up on that. At least Heidi did, so I don't think I'm completely off base with that assumption. As a matter of fact, the person who first pointed out the fact that they were holding little pink slips of paper, was a person who was using the image as his own desktop background. And he's a fanatical Bush supporter. I'm not actually the type of person who surfs Bush's website (or Kerry's or anyone else's for that matter) looking for photos. There's nothing wrong with that, it's just not my 'thing'. Yes, I mention stupidity worthy of awe, but I think you're reading a little bit *too* much into the caption of my post. My captions are often ridiculous. Half of the time, they don't even have anything to do with the post below them. There are plenty of blogs that have good thoughtful discussion on politics and the world in general, mine isn't one of them. Not by a long shot. Sure, I put some snap observations up there (and I have plenty of thought to back them up), I choose not to post them. I really don't think my post, Heidi's or the mantras regularly chanted by the "Bush is Stupid" crowd even marginially reaches the intensity of the Clinton haters. There are some serious Bush haters out there (as mentioned briefly by VH aboce) who do but I really don't think Heidi and I qualify in that regard. Now, back to reading for Con Law - the current bane of my existence (not really)!

Posted by: DG | March 17, 2004 6:20 PM