Milbank: No Light at the End of the (Bambolooza)Tour

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/29/AR2005042901594.html

President Bush's "60 stops in 60 days" campaign to promote his Social Security proposals ends tomorrow, and the Treasury Department marked the occasion by sending out a list of statistics, among them: 127 cities visited by administration officials, more than 500 radio interviews given by administration officials.

The liberal Center for American Progress retaliated with its own stats: 38 percent of Americans approved of Bush's handling of Social Security before the tour, and 31 percent approve at the end of the tour.

With such a high-minded debate underway, it should come as no surprise that the finale of the tour -- President Bush and Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.) holding dueling events near Falls Church -- would be true to form. Bush tried to persuade his audience that Social Security would stop making payments if nothing was done. And Moran accused Bush of destroying the system.

Bush, who announced a potentially explosive plan Thursday night that would restore the system's solvency by cutting benefits for 70 percent of future retirees, gave only one sentence to the proposal in a 44-minute speech, and even then he said nothing about the cuts. When one of the panelists at his roundtable thanked him for trying "to reduce the rate of growth of benefits," the president ignored the remark.

[jaysunb]

1. Good manners won't permit me to say what I

think about Milbanks and his whorish ways.

[Trajan]

3. I have found Milbanks ...

amongst the better journalists around ...

Not perfect, but alright ...

[cestpaspossible]

6. I'm sure

the prisoners at Treblinka also had their favorite guards.

[mcctatas]

2. What I would really like to know is just how much

W's obsessive flogging of this particular dead horse has already cost the taxpayers. I mean with all of the flights in a time of soaring gas prices (ok so I'm a little fuzzy on the exact chemical make up of jet fuel), the security costs, and personal pretzel chewer that he probably takes on every trip....Hell he probably just blew another couple million he could have given the rich in tax cuts!!!

[unhappycamper]

4. Hey - this is a good idea.

If we can estimate the total cost of this shell game, we could propose * stay at home & we'll give a direct deposit to the wealthiest .001% for the amount.

We could name it the "Emergency Presidential Environmental Act of 2005."

This would have two immediate effects on most Americans:

1. Reduces environmental pollution.
2. Reduces political pollution.

[mcctatas]

7. Now that is one hell of an idea!!

[roseBudd]

5. Air Force 1 costs taxpayers $56,000 an hour and Bush used it more...

than any other incumbant to campaign for reelection.

That of course is just the cost for Air Force One.