Friday, February 13, 2004
THE BUDGET OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT
This Year: With Photographs!
What About Brush Clearing?
In a typically excellent column in today’s New York Times, Paul Krugman tells readers this year’s Budget of the U.S. Government -- which is not only a “thing” but also a document, a set of documents -- includes in the latter form nearly 30 hagiographic photographs of President George W. Bush (“The Real Man”).
That’s remarkable. Astounding, really. And it’s despicable.
In a previous incarnation -- actually, nothing quite so metaphysical, but rather at my first “real” job -- this document, the Budget of the U.S. Government, sat on my desk year-round: dog-eared, heavily Post-It-ed, and very dirty from my newsprint-tainted fingertips.
Today I probably couldn’t make my way around the book or, more accurately, books -- and I mean that, these things are huge -- but I used to know these volumes like the back of my hand.
And so, like Krugman, possibly even more than he since I was young and stupid then, naïve even, not nearly as jaded as I should have been or have become since that time, I was disgusted -- but not entirely surprised -- to learn that under the current White House occupant this collection of numbers and lines and history and projections and explanatory text and footnotes has been transformed into a veritable campaign pamphlet, all at your expense, courtesy of the Government Printing Office which must, by law, print that which it is told to do.
Krugman writes:
We see the president in front of a giant American flag, in front of the Washington Monument, comforting an elderly woman in a wheelchair, helping a small child with his reading assignment, building a trail through the wilderness[,] and, of course, eating turkey with the troops in Iraq. Somehow the art director neglected to include a photo of the president swimming across the Yangtze River.
It was not ever thus. [Former President] Bill Clinton’s budgets were illustrated with tables and charts, not with worshipful photos of the president being presidential.
Actually, Dr. Krugman, as I know you know, it was never thus.
I just have one question, and perhaps someone who has seen the books can answer this quickly: Is there not one single photograph of the president clearing brush at “the ranch”?
Because, as we all know, everyone belonging to this nefarious cabal, including Karl Rove and Andrew Card, and even Karen Hughes and Barbara Bush the Much Elderess, throw major bone over that stuff.
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JAMES MARTIN CAPOZZOLA
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James Martin (Jim) Capozzola launched The Rittenhouse Review in April 2002, TRR: The Lighter Side of Rittenhouse, HorowitzWatch, and Smarter Andrew Sullivan in July 2002, and Bulldogs for Kerry-Edwards in October 2004. He is also a contributing member of President Boxer.
He received the 2002 Koufax Award for Best Post> for "Al Gore and the Alpha Girls" (published November 25, 2002). Capozzola's record in the Koufax Awards includes two additional nominations for 2002 (Best Blog and Best Writing), three nominations for 2003 (Best Blog, Best Series, and Best Writing), and two finalist nominations in 2004 (Best Blog and Best Writing).
Capozzola’s experience beyond the blogosphere includes a lengthy career in financial journalism, securities analysis, and investment research, and in freelance writing, editing, ghost-writing, and writing instruction.
He earned his bachelor's degree in political science from the University at Albany and a master's in foreign affairs from the University of Virginia.
Capozzola lives in Philadelphia with his bulldog, Mildred.
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