The Rittenhouse Review

A Philadelphia Journal of Politics, Finance, Ethics, and Culture


Monday, June 17, 2002  

POST BOTTOM FEEDER TAKES THE BAIT
Dana Milbank Finds a Scholar in the White House

Throw enough chum over the side of the boat and even the muddiest bottom feeder will take the bait.

As evidence, we offer the following excerpt from the unintentionally hilarious tract, “A Few Degrees Warmer for Bush: President Cheered At Commencement,” by Dana Milbank in Saturday’s Washington Post:

“The president who spoke here [Ohio State University] today was not the same president who spoke in New Haven a year ago. Bush aide John Bridgeland told reporters this morning that the president's speech, serious and grave, was inspired by the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith, George Eliot, Emily Dickinson, William Wordsworth, Pope John Paul II, Aristotle, Benjamin Rush, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Cicero -- although the president mentioned none of them by name. The former C student, Bridgeland said, ‘actually discussed Nicomachean ethics’ [sic] in the Oval Office, not to mention the Patrick Henry-James Madison debate.”

A confession: Even we had to look up Nicomachean Ethics.

Are there no editors at the Post on weekends?

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