\jeff{krimmel}

The President Is Confused Over His Own Bill

After this many years of this nonsense, I just get fed up. President Bush today tried to explain the immigration bill he supports, the bill he is trying to convince Congress to pass. Here is what happened:

“You know, I’ve heard all the rhetoric - you’ve heard it, too - about how this is amnesty,” Bush told advocates of his immigration overhaul. “Amnesty means that you’ve got to pay a price for having been here illegally, and this bill does that.”

That’s not what Bush meant. Saying that his bill included amnesty was the last thing he meant.

When word started to get out about the gaffe in media reports, the White House scrambled to fix it.

Tony Snow then had to go to the press and notify everyone that the President misspoke and meant exactly the opposite of what he said. Mind you, this is not a case of just forgetting the word “not”, or using “increasing” instead of “decreasing”. President Bush explained the fundamental premise of his bill, and he got it completely wrong.

I just get so tired of this. The leader of the free world needs to be held to a different standard. He or she can’t just have average intelligence. They can’t just be able to communicate on a so-so level. The president is a leader, a leader who has more power than any other single person on the planet. And our leader cannot even communicate the basic premise of a bill on which he hopes to pin a nontrivial portion of legacy.

Bill Maher said a while back that in the next presidential election, he’s looking for someone who is bright. And not just kind of bright. Really, exceptionally bright. Because it just doesn’t work to have someone who can’t even remember the most fundamental components of substantial issues he values. It just gets really ****ing old.