June 19, 2002
Bush's "Lucky me, I hit the Trifecta" joke
In his political speeches, Bush has been compulsively repeating his tasteless joke about "Lucky me, I hit the trifecta" because the 9-11 attacks gave him the justification he wanted to raid the Social Security fund. It's almost too weird to even contemplate. Can he not see that he is joking insensitively about how the WTC-Pentagon attacks enabled him to justify yanking out money paid in by working people for their retirement and giving it to his buddies in the defense industry? Characterizing it as a "win" for himself is venal. How do the families of those killed in the attacks feel about that? How can any American look upon this man as a "leader"?
Please give us a breakAn editorial in The New Republic points out that there is no record of him ever saying that he would not break into the Social Security fund "except in case of war or recession..." until August of 2001. It had always been a straight promise with no conditions that he would never do it. How strange is it that a few weeks before the attacks he suddenly started setting up a condition for breaking his promise not to dig into the Social Security fund, and his condition just happened to be fulfilled by the attacks.
These were attacks he had warnings about, personally, and failed to take even minimal precautions against. Is there really any mystery about all this? What smoking gun are we waiting for? What has the guy done right?