Saturday, July 7, 2007

Tony the Tuchas*

You want to talk Yiddish, Tony? I’ll give you Yiddish.

On Thursday, White House spokesman Tony Snow addressed reporters once more on President Bush’s controversial decision to commute the sentence of convicted perjurer (and former aide) I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

Specifically, Snow was responding to remarks made earlier by former President Bill Clinton. Campaigning in Iowa with his wife, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., the former president acidly observed of the Bush administration, “They believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle.”

In noting that Bill Clinton had himself pardoned 140 people in the closing hours of his presidency (including fugitive financier Marc Rich), Snow said, “I don’t know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it.”

“Gigantic case of it?” Tony, Tony, Tony…….

When you allow a former horse show administrator to oversee the nation’s response to Katrina, and then, when that response is an unmitigated disaster you tell the guy he’s doing a “heckuva job” -- that’s chutzpah.

When you take the nation dishonestly and unnecessarily into a catastrophic war, waste a trillion dollars, needlessly sacrifice more than 3000 young American lives, consistently make excuses for an Iraqi government too feeble to shoulder more of the burden, and then, when the war has lasts longer than our involvement in WWII, ask the American people for more patience -- that’s chutzpah.

But then, so many other Yiddishisms come as easily to mind as “chutzpah” when speaking of all these shmucks. Former Majority Leader Tom DeLay, disgraced former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, and jailed former U.S. Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham are just three of a veritable glut of goniffs and shnorers who have truly mucked up Washington with dreck for the past six years. Bush and Cheney’s relentless post-9/11 exploitation and manipulation of fear has given the entire a country a case of severe spilkes. It’s as if we all look forward to 2008 and a big, nationally-cleansing spritz to somehow rid ourselves of two terms of nothing but tsouris.

And Tony Snow? You’re a putz. And you can look it up.*

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