Touché!

by hilzoy

Via TAPPED, a DCCC press release:

"Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Congressman Rahm Emanuel, today released the following statement on President Bush’s “best moment in office”:

“Five years after President Bush said he would find Osama bin Laden, we’re all glad to hear that all he’s caught is an apparently harmless fish,” said Congressman Rahm Emanuel, Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee."

Sad but true.

Comments

[javelina]

It gets better. The President says he caught a 7.5-pound perch. Now, perch tend to be small fish. Really quite small. I caught them in Texas myself as a kid, and believe me, they're not challenging. And according to AMERICAblog, the largest perch ever recorded was 4 pounds 3 ounces.

Um.

[hilzoy]

javelina: from TAPPED:

"I'd heard questions raised as to whether it was really possible for the President's finest hour to have been catching a 7.5 pound perch in light of the fact that American perch don't get that big. According to the White House, however, this is a complete misunderstanding -- he was being interviewed in English, then that got translated into German, and then translated back into English. What the President actually said was "the best moment was when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound large mouth bass on my lake." Bass do get big enough to make that plausible."

[J. Michael Neal]

There's Bush, once again playing to the bass.

[CaseyL]

Considering that catching a fish is arguably the least damaging thing Bush has done, maybe he was (inadvertently) telling a greater truth than he's getting credit for.

[cleek]

we’re all glad to hear that all he’s caught is an apparently harmless fish

hmmm. i wonder which wingnut will read this as "The Dems are glad W hasn't caught OBL! Treason! Traitor! Objectively-pro-terrorist!"

[javelina]

Ah, thanks for the correction, Hilzoy - sort of like a game of Telephone, isn't it? Or working with Babelfish when it's feeling particularly cranky.

A bass could easily weigh 7.5 pounds, so I withdraw all fish-story accusations.

Your point remains - best moment? Yow.

[phrasing]

cleek's right--

Emmanuel bungled his bon mot (try saying it out loud). I know, the claim that he's glad is ironic. But the syntax is fighting the joke.

A single base at best. Colbert would have knocked this sucker out of the park.

[Paul]

What the President actually said was "the best moment was when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound large mouth bass on my lake."

That's mistranslated. What the President actually said was "The best moment was when I put a seven-and-a-half pound large lake bass in my mouth."

[blowm3]

hmmm. i wonder which wingnut will read this as "The Dems are glad W hasn't caught OBL! Treason! Traitor! Objectively-pro-terrorist!"

It's not necessarily that the wingnut's think you are traitors in your heart. It's just that your actions and words lend more moral support to AQ than Bush.

Just today we have another report about how AQ's chances in Iraq are dependant on winning the media war.

Many here have helped AQ successfully wage the media battle. I don't know that it is intentional it's just that your objectives line up so well.

[Paul]

Yup, we're all in Osama bin forgotten's pocket, blowm3.

I wonder if a certain resident of 1600 Pennsylania Avenue had done something about AQ in the almost 5 years since 9/11 -- beside enhancing their recruiting efforts -- perhaps there wouldn't be a media war or any other kind?

In all the seriousness your comment merits, do you or your colleagues really think anyone here loathes Bush more than Osama? Do you really believe that, given the choice of either one to be tried for whatever offenses can be thought up, someone here would really choose an ineffectual ninny versus an obsessive madman?

Hint: I rate Bush as the former, not the latter.

[facts]

Bush has been Bin Laden's biggest friend in helping AQ successfully wage the media battle. I don't know that it is intentional it's just that their objectives line up so well.

[Charles Bird]

A real edifying, substantive post. Fine work, Hil.

[liberal japonicus]

If that's sarcasm, Charles, it's really misplaced coming from you, given that Hilzoy is posting because no one else is. This is not saying that your reasons for not posting very much are not valid, but that Hilzoy chooses to keep up a steady flow of posts and some of those posts don't meet your high standards, well, tough luck.

If not, attribute it to an imbalance of humours on my part and please accept my apologies.

[cleek]

Many here have helped AQ successfully wage the media battle.

it's not like we do it for free, ya know. we were all promsed vast piles of gold and rubies for our efforts... and i'm a little pissed that i'm still waiting for the rubies.

[Tim]

Wonder how many air strikes the pond took before he got the fish.

[cleek]

Wonder how many air strikes the pond took before he got the fish.

it was probably a GOP-pre-screened fish that had been given precise instructions on where to swim and what to bite, in exchange for the honor of swimming in Dear Leader's pond.

[Ugh]

A real edifying, substantive post. Fine work, Hil.

Lighten up Francis.

I love the use of "apparently" in the press release.

[Jeff Eaton]

It's a cringe-inducing answer for some of us, but honestly I think this is a pile-on. It was a politically smart answer. His base will find it folksy and down-to-earth, proof that he's not a power-mad executive dictator. If he'd talked about a major policy initiative, or bringing-freedom-to-Iraq or something, it would've just become another slugfest in the media. This? It's humanizing.

I don't really think Bush looks back on catching that fish as the high point of his Presidency. I think it's another demonstration of his consciously working to project an image of the populist down-home guy you'd want to have a beer with.

[Jesurgislac]

Jeff: I don't really think Bush looks back on catching that fish as the high point of his Presidency. I think it's another demonstration of his consciously working to project an image of the populist down-home guy you'd want to have a beer with.

Sort of like Homer Simpson?

[CharleyCarp]

Jeff, are you suggesting that the plainspoken man who doesn't do nuance, who's words never need to be parsed, might have said something not exactly true, for the purpose of advancing a political agenda?

Ever heard of the book Love Story?

[cleek]

I think it's another demonstration of his consciously working to project an image...

so, he's a phoney.

of the populist down-home guy you'd want to have a beer with.

nah. i got over that pretty shortly after he took office.

[Jeff Eaton]

so, he's a phoney.

Well, in this particular case it's a kind of phony that I have fewer real gripes about. It's an eye-rolling sort of phony, like an advertisement that tells you General Electric is part of your family. You can shrug it off and move on.

[Trickster]

I donno. Seems to me like a pretty stupid answer, no matter how you slice it.
Catching a big fish in a stocked pond is supposed to be a big thrill? That's about as hard as buying a fish at the grocery store.

[John Thullen]

"It's an eye-rolling sort of phoney, like an advertisement that tells you General Electric is part of your family."

Well, perhaps someday when more pressing issues don't take up so much of her time, Hilzoy can write a post about the accumulated insincerity of General Electric and Colgate Palmolive and Buick, etc. and their incessant insinuations into my family and its long-term corrosive effects, like rust, on the very concept of sincerity in American life.

WMD in Iraq sincerely put to me by Bush like a lover pledging eternal devotion was the eyeroller for me. This fish merely broke the camel's back, regardless of its flimsy weight.

Occasionally a very pretty server at a restaurant will gaze into my eyes and ask me if there is anything else I need. Well, I'm nothing if not needy. The sincerity is overwhelming and just as I'm about to throw over my marriage and family and all that is important to me and buy the getaway tickets for two to Paris, it comes to me, once again, that we are talking only coffee here. Yeah, bring it black and then leave me the hell alone. (Beware, oh ye literal ones in the crowd, and I'm talking to you DaveC. ;))

Not that I can't be literal myself. If my wife and I are at the car show and two blondes are draped over the Buick and my wife says "Do you like this year's Buick", I answer, "What Buick?"

All of that sincerity wasted on a lousy cup of coffee and a Buick. It makes you hate sincerity itself.

[Pooh]

I donno. Seems to me like a pretty stupid answer, no matter how you slice it. Catching a big fish in a stocked pond is supposed to be a big thrill? That's about as hard as buying a fish at the grocery store.

Well, what answer would you suggest? He's not exactly (gulp...sorry) swimming with apetizing responses.

[Steve]

I'm reminded of the time Stephen Colbert asked Peggy Noonan, "What's the best thing Bush has done to make you glad you helped get him re-elected?" and she just sat there.

[liberal japonicus]

Well, what answer would you suggest?

Well, it's interesting that some answers would not work with his base. Like 'When I was able to appoint Condi Rice as my Sec of State. To me, that shows people what America is all about' Or 'I can't say my finest hour, because the fighting men who are risking their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan would put anything I said to shame'. While perfectly good responses, they would send the wrong signal to the base. Hence the vignette from a Sportsman's Life.

[Jeff Eaton]

WMD in Iraq sincerely put to me by Bush like a lover pledging eternal devotion was the eyeroller for me. This fish merely broke the camel's back, regardless of its flimsy weight.

Fair point. I can definitely see that. Heh.