The Axles of Evil and Other White House Secrets

Jim sends me this rant by Sebastian

I don’t watch presidential speeches or political speeches in general. I didn’t watch
Clinton’s speeches and I certainly don’t watch Bush’s.

Here’s why. Politician’s speeches are written by speechwriters. Who are speechwriters you say? Speechwriters are clever, well educated, well spoken articulate men and women who write intelligent, reasoned and generally well though out speeches for their pig ignorant, inbred, bone-headed politician/employers.

Would the nation not be better served if the speechwriters held power instead of their pig ignorant, inbred, bone-headed politician/employers? Why yes, but the speechwriters lack the necessary personality deficits and psychoses essential for success in public life.

When you hear a well turned phrase or line coming out of the mouth of your favorite politico you can be assured that it was composed by some speechwriter sweating away in a windowless back office.

Before, this fact, while undoubtedly true, was hard to prove as the speechwriter took a
solemn and required oath to preserve forever the true depth of his boss’s ignorance from the public. Now however, thru the glory of email and specifically the forward button we know the true author of “Bush’s” axis of evil line. It is, trumpet blast, David Frum
former Canadian journalist and author and until recently Whitehouse speechwriter.

Frum's wife, Danielle Crittenden, also a Canadian and currently a journalist, expressed
her glee at her husband’s authorship of the phrase in an e-mail to her friends.
Washington D.C. being what it is, one of said friends forwarded the email to the online
political magazine, Slate, which published it.

Not that I’m implying that “Axis of Evil” is any great moment in the history of rhetoric
or that policy behind it makes any sense. It’s just that the chance of Bush coming up with
it all by his lonesome is about as likely as his being able to define or pronounce
antidisestablishmentarism.

Having said all this; I would like to say that if president Clinton had been handed a
speech by his speechwriters which contained the phrase “Axis of Evil” I don’t think it
would have been necessary to explain that to him that; at least in this case, the word
“Axis” did not refer to the part of the pickup truck that the wheel bolts onto.