SPACECRAFT AS SOULCRAFT
Lately I've had my eye out for stories that illustrate what a collosal joke the Bush administration has been. Here are a couple:
Describing the president's plan to build a moon base, an unnamed administration official says:"It's a national unifying thing, it's a world unifying thing." Plus it's good for aerospace contractors, as Karl Rove, who was in on all these discussions, surely pointed out.
But probably my favorite is in the following profile of conservative guru Grover Norquist from Monday's WaPo, in which Norquist is seen pleading with the administration's budget flack for the daily spin:
When Joshua B. Bolten, director of the Office of Management and Budget, came, Norquist asked,"For those of us on the outside, when someone sticks a mike in our face and says, 'Spending is up! You guys on the right are failing,' what are the talking points?"
Bolten rattled off the budget statistics that he could use.
Yet under Bush, the largest budget surplus in history has become the largest deficit in history. In the past, Norquist has said he wants to shrink government"down to the size where you could drown it in a bathtub." Now, glancing up at Bolten, Norquist ventured politely:"Is there a single agency you want to get rid of? It would be really helpful for us to say, 'This administration wants to get rid of . . . '"
It's pretty clear from the article that Norquist didn't get an answer.