Keith Olbermann, in tonight's report on David Kuo'sbook,
Tempting Faith, quoted Karl Rove as saying "Just get me a f*%#ing faith-based thing. Got it?"
I was instantly reminded of Bush 41 and "the vision thing." While that phrase has certainly entered the lexicon, the story of its origin seems to have gone down the memory hole.
More after the jump....
Here's the way I remember it:
During the 1988 presidential campaign, Bush was telling a speechwriter what he wanted him to cover in a speech and said something like "and give me some of that vision thing." The speechwriter asked Bush "What vision is that?" and Bush said impatiently, "You know. The vision thing!"
A cursory Google search turned up scads of references to "the vision thing" as something Bush said, but I couldn't find any references to its origin. Anyone who knows the details of this story, please chime in. I may have originally read the story in Spy magazine.
To me, "the vision thing" was emblematic of the cynical politics of the Bush crowd, the idea that he could order up vision as casually as you'd order a side of fries.
Rove's comment is equally despicable.