STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

HAHAHAH!! blubirde, you crack me up..." Babs?" I'm sorry, but what the hell was that?  I don't understand what she is trying to say?  Why is she saying that it is "scary" that everyone wants to move to Houston?  Is it because all these underprivilged people will be infesting their city?  I don't want to assume this, since she didn't directly say this...BUT for a former first lady, you would think she would have a little bit more tact.  But then again, I've never been a fan of her to begin with.

blubirde wrote:

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 I think she's saying poor people are used to really bad conditions so the shelters are something they're used to or maybe are better than what they're used to. That's what I take from it. Elitism at its absolute worst.

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thats what I assumed she meant too. which is absolutly ridiculous and I actually hurt my eyes rolling them so hard at that statement.

WOW.

 

and you wonder why our president was so quick to help those people out of NO?!  i'm sure Evacuation #2 (Operation Houston) will go much smoother and faster because we all know that when momma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy, 

-- Edited by shopgirl82 at 14:39, 2005-09-06

sorry, this is really pissing me off. especially the little chuckle. wtf? why doesn't she just give a little  "let them eat cake" while she's at at.

You are right Halleybird she probably doesn't know where she is or what she's saying herself! Heck, GW doesn't know what he is saying half of the time either, so I guess it runs in the family!!

Here's a good editorial on Babs that I read this morning:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0509070253sep07,1,6154573.column

I definitely don't think what she said was taken out of context.  I can't even believe her ignorance.  Ugh.

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Mother's remark puts silver foot in Bush's mouth


Published September 7, 2005

I was all set to defend President Bush as a guy who really doesn't want poor black people in Louisiana and Mississippi to die of starvation and disease, no matter what the Democrats say.

But then Barbara Bush, the president's mom, went and dusted off the Bush family silver foot Monday. And she used it.

While touring the Houston Astrodome, where thousands of Hurricane Katrina refugees have been huddling, Barbara Bush said they didn't have it so bad because, heck, they were poor to begin with.

"What I'm hearing, which is sort of scary, is they all want to stay in Texas," she was quoted as saying in an interview on National Public Radio.

Thousands of hurricane refugees were sitting on or near their green army cots, perhaps thinking of lunch, presumably waiting to be fed something hearty.

Anything but cake.

"Everyone is so overwhelmed by the hospitality," Barbara Bush said. And here comes the fastball over the middle of the Democratic plate:

"And so many of the people in the arena here, you know, were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them."

At least she didn't ask them to sing and dance. But I'm sure it's working out very well for them. How often does something nice like a hurricane come by and change your life so you can hang out with thousands of others in the Astrodome and have Barbara Bush say it wasn't so bad, because you were poor anyway?

By my calculations, Barb's foot is about a 10 1/2 EE, but by the time you read this on Wednesday, after Leno and Letterman get through with her, she'll have an EEEE at least. There should be some back teeth stuck to the pinky toe when the surgeon general finally pulls it out.

You've got to figure that somewhere, former Texas Democratic Gov. Ann Richards is smiling. It was Richards, or perhaps one of her pointy-headed ghostwriters, who came up with the devastating line about former President George H.W. Bush.

Richards said the former president couldn't be blamed for his misstatements, because he was born with a silver foot in his mouth. Now it turns out Barbara was in charge of the silver. She polished it up good and shiny. And in political terms, she put her foot in her son's mouth and knocked loose a few teeth.

I'm sure Barbara won't be able to fix things up just by bringing a lime Jell-O mold (with floating chunks of pineapple) over to the White House at suppertime.

"Son?"

"What, Ma?"

"I'm sorry what I said about those people. However, I did make Jell-O to cheer you up."

"With the chunks?"

Most of us have moms, but if we're lucky, they never made Jell-O with or without the hideous chunks. But most of us don't have moms who could start a war with China or overturn the Republican's Southern Strategy with a few choice words, like Barbara Bush just did.

Please don't get it into your head that my constant exposure to people in the mainstream media--many of whom are still peeved that Al Gore isn't president--has changed my political views. It hasn't.

But what Barbara Bush said can't be ignored. She's the former first lady, the current first grandmother, and she's no political cream puff.

Even though she's got that soft white hair and those crinkly blue eyes, she also has that deadly string of pearls and probably rattled them at Laura Bush when they first met, and Laura got flustered and blurted out that her two hobbies were reading and smoking.

Who wouldn't get flustered? I'm scared of her, too, and I've only seen her on TV.

Like the president, my mom's a Republican, so I called to warn her about what Barbara Bush said.

"No!" she said. "That can't be true."

I could hear her fingers typing on her laptop, frantically trying to get to The National Review Online, where she could find ammunition to refute such a heinous story created by the liberal mainstream media.

But it is true and she knows it now, and I had to remind her of something that all reporters and editors remind their families, particularly moms: Don't talk to reporters, ever.

It has nothing to do with journalists thinking we're famous or popular or that anyone cares what we say. It does have to do, however, with the ancient fear held by most humans (except for the Jerry Springer set) that anything our moms say may be embarrassing, that the women who brought us into the world can take us out of it with one foolish statement, a la Barbara Bush.

And, besides, we're reporters. We know what we're like.

So, what did I say about reporters?

"Never to talk to them, ever?" said my mom, who was a reporter once, but repeated this to humor me.

Exactly.

lorelei wrote:

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Well, at least we know where George W. gets it from.  I am sure....after witnessing my humble and intelligent, but tough father-in-law keep his dignity after a local media followed some fraudulent activity that occurred on his watch while he was a city's public school super-intendant....reporters do lie and they do take things out of context.  Given, it is hard to remember to watch your comments around reporters, but I seem to think that this quality should be an important quality to look for in our most high elected officials as well as their immediate family....among plenty of other criteria the Bush family doesn't meet in my own humble opinion. I kind of think she didn't mean it that way, but I still wish that as a former first lady, she didn't really think that way, even if only for a moment of ignorance.

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good reporters NEVER should, though I have seen people hurt by statements taken out of context, too (my school's principal, for instance).

Sometimes, though, people don't like the reaction to what they said and then try to blame the reporters for context. I have seen this happen more times than I can count.  Somebody like Babs, who has been a public figure for so long, should know to be very guarded and not even say something that could be interpreted that way.

I was actually listening to NPR when she said this.  My jaw dropped to the floor when she made that statement! 

Oh and it was not taken out of context - she blatantly said it - and NPR said goodbye to her shortly after (probably in shock as well).