Rep. Rahm Emanuel: “Why are we paying over $100,000 for a ‘White House Director of Lessons Learned’?” Good question.
Republicans can’t stop talking about how “robust” the economy is, which makes sense if you are a member of the Republican-run Congress, whom just gave themselves a nice pay raise, or a member of the upper echelon of White House staffers, whom also gave themselves a pay raise. Yes folks, Karl Rove just got a raise. And it’s our tax dollars that comprise his salary.
Meanwhile, in the real world, regular folks continue to work for a pittance at places like Wal-Mart, primarily because the Republican-led Congress refused- again- to raise the minimum wage. The minimum wage was last increased under Clinton. That was a long time ago (and after years of Bush rule, it certainly feels longer).
Via americablog, Truthdig and the Trib’s “The Swamp,” I find Illinois’ Rahm Emanuel sticking it to the man.
You may also recall that the Speaker of the House, one Denny Hastert, pledged that fiscal responsibility would return to Washington. I seem to recall some intrepid blogger (whose name escapes me) repeatedly calling “bullshit” on Hastert’s claims…this is yet one more example.
Read Emanuel’s righteous smackdown- delivered on the floor of the House, after the jump…
“Mr. Speaker, yesterday the President said we continue to be wise about how we spend the people’s money.
“Then why are we paying over $100,000 for a ‘White House Director of Lessons Learned’?
“Maybe I can save the taxpayers $100,000 by running through a few of the lessons this White House should have learned by now.
“Lesson 1: When the Army Chief of Staff and the Secretary of State say you are going to war without enough troops, you’re going to war without enough troops.
“Lesson 2: When 8.8 billion dollars of reconstruction funding disappears from Iraq, and 2 billion dollars disappears from Katrina relief, it’s time to demand a little accountability.
“Lesson 3: When you’ve ‘turned the corner’ in Iraq more times than Danica Patrick at the Indy 500, it means you are going in circles.
“Lesson 4: When the national weather service tells you a category 5 hurricane is heading for New Orleans, a category 5 hurricane is heading to New Orleans.
“I would also ask the President why we’re paying for two ‘Ethics Advisors’ and a ‘Director of Fact Checking.’
“They must be the only people in Washington who get more vacation time than the President.
“Maybe the White House could consolidate these positions into a Director of Irony.”
The fact that you don’t know the difference between “who” and “whom” really ruined this article for me. Please try to learn English before writing in it!
Oh give the guy a break will ya? It could have just been an auto-spell checker.. He does use it correctly later on in the article.
Nice write-up, cheers.
-K
It’s times like these that make me wish there was an emoticon for eye-rolling. I believe my usage was correct, but the larger point is: is that the best you can do? Not gonna even try and take on the actual content of the post or Emanuel’s statements? Whom do you think you are?
http://www.wonderfulwritingskillsunhandbook.com/html/who_vs_whom.html
It is indeed “who.” I do agree with most of your points though.
Gabriel-
Since we’ve descended to the point of criticizing grammar, I must mention that your statement (“Please try to learn English before writing in it!”) also commits the grammatical crime of ending in a preposition.
So there. Take that, grammar boy.
Sources, people!
http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/prepositions.htm
Since when is “it” a preposition?
“It” is a preposition?
Anyway, nice writeup (with or without grammatical errors).
I stand corrected: “it” is indeed a pronoun, not a preposition.
I had no idea there were so many budding grammarians in the ChiMetBlogs comments section.
However, in my defense, I suppose one or two grammatical foibles out of 312 total posts constituting some untold thousands of words isn’t too bad.
I love grammatical wars.
He did know Katrina was going to hit… the Mayor of New Orleans, on the other hand, did not phase to do anything about it and then blame it on the President.
Brent-
While that’s a debate I’ve had before and am not really interested in having again, by your own admission Bush was alerted to Katrina and chose to raise money for Republicans and strum guitar instead of doing anything substantive. I think Emanuel’s point stands.
Okay, now that I’ve gotten stirred up by the “whom” debate, what in the world does “did not phase to do anything” mean?? It’s very possible that the mayor didn’t plan, propose, aim, aspire, care, intend, mean, or even figure to do anything. Perhaps the midgets suspect that he wasn’t “fazed” by a category 5 hurricane, or maybe he was just “phased-out?” ;-P
http://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition
Please refer to that page on what exactly is a preposition.
A preposition tells where or when, or show possession. “it” on the other hand is none of those
Enough! This thread is a fucking train wreck.
Does anybody want to address the comments by Rahm Emanuel?
Don’t fall for the distraction of grammer critique.
This critique of the current administration is illuminating and forthright.
With the abuse of spending, lack of accountability, strategic bumbling, and general oafishness, the Republican party has become a disappointment to thinking conservatives.
I belive in the Constitution. I will not listen to demigogic charlatains who betray the values of America.
you know what the both of you need to pull your heads out of your proverbial butts. The fact that you have gone to lengths to talk about grammer is exactly why the president can run over us time and time again. All anyone cares about is the small things take a look at the bigger pictures guys .