The Best Of Shut Up And Listen Year Three 5--Column 137

I can't believe I got people believing this bullshit! I'm serious, I had people thinking that I was actually reporting facts with this column. I did my standard pimp thread at Millarworld, this week in the politics section and people thought it was a factual column instead of satire. It ended with the thread being closed and me bitching at the moderator who did it, arguing for my right to make political commentary in the politics forum. Another mod opened the thread again, so I could respond to the people who believed me. This, and the Robert Andrews column are my two favourite columns. There's something just fun about fucking with people's head like that. I still can't believe that people believed what I wrote here. Like in the Robert Andrews column, I gave a bunch of tip-offs in the column to help people out. I won't go into the details of what they are, but some are pretty obvious. The most obvious one is that I was the only one reporting on this press conference. Yeah, a (then) twenty-year old Canadian university student somehow broke the story of Bush blaming people who voted for him for all the mistakes he's made. That's likely. Actually, one guy who believed it, messaged me the next day just beside himself for believing it. He couldn't believe he fell for it and actually apologized for it. I really do like this column a lot for that reason, I think.

Playing The Blame Game

After the success of his press conference earlier this week, US President George Bush called another one for Friday. This came as a surprise to almost everyone considering that in his almost three years as President, this was only his eleventh press conference. But as the President said at the conference, "The last one was fun and I like to do fun stuff."

Many of the questions covered the same ground as the one earlier this week with the President once again claiming that the problem in Iraq will be dealt with and that aside from a few anti-American terrorists in Iraq still present danger for American troops. The interesting, original, never-before-heard quotes came when asked about the economy.

A reporter for a paper out of New York asked the President, "Since you became President, the economy has gone nowhere but down and all efforts on your behalf have failed to rectify it. Should you be blamed for the downturn in the economy or do you think it was something that could not be helped?"

The President then paused briefly and said, "I think that I am, cannot be blamed for the economy not doing so well because it wasn't, I didn't choose to be President, the American people elected me and I can't be blamed for the choices that others make. We can't go around blaming people who aren't responsible for the mistakes that other people make and we should stop blaming those people who don't make the mistakes because other people made choices to be blamed about choices made."

Essentially, the President claimed that the poor economical conditions in the US were not his responsibility, but that of Americans who voted for him. This isn't as weak a move as it appears to be as some political analysts pointed out. John Benjamin of the University of Washington said, "This is a smart move considering the fact that less than half of eligible American voters voted for Bush. He is appealing to his critics by attacking his supporters. He's attempting to sway anti-Bush voters to his point of view through seeming to be on their side. If he disagrees or blames the people they disagree with then it appears as if he is with them and thus get their votes."

In fact, some political pundits are calling this the most ingenious strategy they've seen in years. "I cannot believe no one has ever thought of this: when your support drops, just turn on the people who stuck with you and join up with the people who don't like you," Aaron Swift of Harvard said in his local radio show.

Support for Bush has risen since he began to blame those who voted for him in 2000. Former anti-Bush Americans have been swayed to his camp. "Well, you know, it's like he said `Screw those assholes!' which is what I've been saying for like five years, you know? It took a while, but GW is on the good guys' side now. He's got my vote in 2004 for sure!" a local protestor said, while protesting animal testing. In fact, Bush's approval went down harshly immediately after the statement was said, but then slowly began to rise after it reached a record low of 23%. It is currently situated at 76% and has a strong youth contingent that sees his blaming of voters for him as a condemnation of older generations.

Even Democrats in the Senate and House of Representatives are praising Bush for his recent statement, while Republicans are also supporting the President because they recognise that his tactic of "blame the minority of American voters for all our problems" is a brilliant strategy. In fact, several Democratic candidates have dropped out of the race and have pledged their support to Bush.

Because of what looks superficially to be the biggest blunder in US political history, it is looking more and more like Bush will get re-elected in 2004, riding on a wave of former Democrats and anti-war protestors.