Wednesday, January 21, 2004
Doing The Numbers On Bush
This unsigned piece in the Telegraph asks, "how does Bush's first term add up," and then answers by looking at a series of juxtaposed numbers that don't add up to the same picture the President presented tonight.
There's more.
And more numbers to be added. A project well worth underaking. A portrait of Bush, painted by numbers. To be kept in the pocket of everyone who reads left of center blogs and who thinks that four years of this madness has been more than enough. Ready to be shared with fence-sitting friends and relatives.
I'm serious.
One of the most difficult rhetorical tasks ahead for all of us is how to deal with President Bush's tenuous relationship with facts without having to call him a liar. And why not just call him that? Because a huge number of Americans, often the very ones we wish to sway to our side, just don't like that kind political rhetoric. But the chasm between what Bush says and what he does, between what he presents as "reality," and what the "reality" factually is, are among his most serious faults as a President. How to broach the subject and yet not turn off the very people we're trying to persuade.
Let the numbers tell the story? Tell us what you think.
UPDATE: alert reader, swarty, points out that I'm actually linking here to a story that appeared in the Independent, and would have been an unlikely candidate for the pages of the rightwing Telegraph. Too true; weirdly I was staring right at the "Independent" website and url even while I typed "Telegraph," and even almost commented on the oddness of the piece appearing there. Apparently, I'd lost my mind while listening to last night's SOTU.
232: Number of American combat deaths in Iraq between May 2003 and January 2004
501: Number of American servicemen to die in Iraq from the beginning of the war - so far
0: Number of American combat deaths in Germany after the Nazi surrender to the Allies in May 1945
0: Number of coffins of dead soldiers returning home from Iraq that the Bush administration has allowed to be photographed
0: Number of funerals or memorials that President Bush has attended for soldiers killed in Iraq
100: Number of fund-raisers attended by Bush or Vice-President Dick Cheney in 2003
(edit)
$100 billion: Estimated cost of the war in Iraq to American citizens by the end of 2003
$13 billion: Amount other countries have committed towards rebuilding Iraq (much of it in loans) as of 24 October
36%: Increase in the number of desertions from the US army since 1999
92%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that had access to drinkable water a year ago
60%: Percentage of Iraq's urban areas that have access to drinkable water today
32%: Percentage of the bombs dropped on Iraq this year that were not precision-guided
1983: The year in which Donald Rumsfeld gave Saddam Hussein a pair of golden spurs
There's more.
And more numbers to be added. A project well worth underaking. A portrait of Bush, painted by numbers. To be kept in the pocket of everyone who reads left of center blogs and who thinks that four years of this madness has been more than enough. Ready to be shared with fence-sitting friends and relatives.
I'm serious.
One of the most difficult rhetorical tasks ahead for all of us is how to deal with President Bush's tenuous relationship with facts without having to call him a liar. And why not just call him that? Because a huge number of Americans, often the very ones we wish to sway to our side, just don't like that kind political rhetoric. But the chasm between what Bush says and what he does, between what he presents as "reality," and what the "reality" factually is, are among his most serious faults as a President. How to broach the subject and yet not turn off the very people we're trying to persuade.
Let the numbers tell the story? Tell us what you think.
UPDATE: alert reader, swarty, points out that I'm actually linking here to a story that appeared in the Independent, and would have been an unlikely candidate for the pages of the rightwing Telegraph. Too true; weirdly I was staring right at the "Independent" website and url even while I typed "Telegraph," and even almost commented on the oddness of the piece appearing there. Apparently, I'd lost my mind while listening to last night's SOTU.
