Maureen Dowd in yesterday's New York Times has a great would-be meeting of President Jed Bartlett of the "West Wing" with Barack Obama. (The piece was actually written by Aaron Sorkin, the writer for West Wing.) Bartlett's advice is some Mark Twain would be proud of.
http://www.nytimes.com/...
Obama knocks on Bartlett's door:
OBAMA I didn’t expect you to answer the door yourself.
BARTLET I didn’t expect you to be getting beat by John McCain and a Lancôme rep who thinks "The Flintstones" was based on a true story, so let’s call it even.
Bartlett begins by telling Obama to simplify his message:
The people who want English to be the official language of the United States are uncomfortable with their leaders being fluent in it.
Mark Twain's quote on this is : "If you can't write it on a matchbook cover, it's not worth saying."
For those who can't read the entire piece the main paragraph is this:
GET ANGRIER! Call them liars, because that’s what they are. Sarah Palin didn’t say "thanks but no thanks" to the Bridge to Nowhere. She just said "Thanks." You were raised by a single mother on food stamps — where does a guy with eight houses who was legacied into Annapolis get off calling you an elitist? And by the way, if you do nothing else, take that word back. Elite is a good word, it means well above average. I’d ask them what their problem is with excellence. While you’re at it, I want the word "patriot" back. McCain can say that the transcendent issue of our time is the spread of Islamic fanaticism or he can choose a running mate who doesn’t know the Bush doctrine from the Monroe Doctrine, but he can’t do both at the same time and call it patriotic. They have to lie — the truth isn’t their friend right now. Get angry. Mock them mercilessly; they’ve earned it. McCain decried agents of intolerance, then chose a running mate who had to ask if she was allowed to ban books from a public library. It’s not bad enough she thinks the planet Earth was created in six days 6,000 years ago complete with a man, a woman and a talking snake, she wants schools to teach the rest of our kids to deny geology, anthropology, archaeology and common sense too? It’s not bad enough she’s forcing her own daughter into a loveless marriage to a teenage hood, she wants the rest of us to guide our daughters in that direction too? It’s not enough that a woman shouldn’t have the right to choose, it should be the law of the land that she has to carry and deliver her rapist’s baby too? I don’t know whether or not Governor Palin has the tenacity of a pit bull, but I know for sure she’s got the qualifications of one. And you’re worried about seeming angry? You could eat their lunch, make them cry and tell their mamas about it and God himself would call it restrained. There are times when you are simply required to be impolite. There are times when condescension is called for!
As a fan of Mark Twain type "wisdom" and a fan of taking it hard to the repugs, i thought i'd pass this humor on even though i'm not always a Maureen Dowd fan. I do like Barack and Biden's new strong message today- it sounds like they read the column.