Framing Jr's failures as the "soft bigotry of low expectations"

[shockingelk]

Idea for LTTE - frame Bush failures as not living up to his own expectations ...

The "soft bigotry of low expectations" is is a phrase Jr used in both his 2000 and 2004 acceptance speeches. He used it to describe people who think minority students don't have the ability to succeed in school. Nobody thinks that other than racists. If there are racist teachers and administrators, the solution is to fire them, not to give their students a test.

The use of the phrase to argue for requiring testing is silly. But our President is clearly fond of being what he would call a "soft bigot" with low expectations of himself in many areas.

Bush took advantage of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" as a blue blood member of the National Guard during Vietnam. To his defenders, the core of the issue isn't that Bush may have been allowed to work on a political campaign instead of showing up for duty. Nor is it that he was suspended from flying for failing to take a physical. Instead, the boiler plate response is "Bush was discharged honorably" - it doesn't matter that less may have been expected of him.

Each year, Bush's budgets presented to Congress expect less from his fiscal policies. In 2002, after the terrorist attacks and stock market plunge, they expected their economic policies to produce a $61 billion surplus in 2005. In 2003, they lowered that expectation to a $208 billion deficit. Their budget presented in 2004 lowered the expectation further to a $363 billion deficit.

The Bush administration expected their "tax cut package" to produce 306,000 jobs each month starting in July 2003. To date, they've fallen short of that expectation by over 2.6 million jobs, yet they are trumpeting a 144,000 increase in employment in August as a success. 144,000 jobs a month is not even enough to keep up with population growth. They give themselves a passing grade because they've lowered their expectations.

What they expected to find in Iraq doesn't have to be enumerated. But now, they're pointing to a country experiencing almost daily suicide car bombings as evidence of their success in fighting terror tactics.

I want a president that achieves what he expects to do. It's time to fire this one who has a habit of not living up to his own expectations and presenting his failures as successes.

[johnfunk]

1. KICK! "Soft bigotude of low expectorifications"

Spoiled, pampered, entitled frat boy Shemp W. Bush, poster child for the soft bigotry of low expectations and affirmative access for the moneyed!

[shockingelk]

2. Maybe adding a positive note about Kerry

- Kerry quickly acted to co-authored the Aviation Security Act which was unanimously approved in the Senate days after 9/11

- Kerry authored the Nurse Reinvestment Act in 2001 to help deal with the shortage of nurses. Despite the fact it didn't pass that year, he continued to push his colleagues to act on the problem and succeeded in enacting his legislation when his act was incorporated into the Nurse Reinvestment Act of 2002, which did pass and is now law.

- During his Senate career, Kerry has successfully fought for campaign finance reform, better pay and benefits for the military veterans, has consistently voted to freeze his own salary as a member of congress and has championed environmental causes so as to receive a 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters.

- Nobody believed Kerry would win the Democratic primary until he proved to America he could do it by succeeding in the first several primaries.

- Nobody believed any democratic challenger would be running a tight race with the sitting president.

[Supersedeas]

3. Media certainly is taking the trivializing *'s record HOOK/line/headline