HOW MUCH WOOD WOULD A GEORGE BUSH CHUCK?

For those who thought it was funny when the current pretend President of the United States went into his homespun humor mode when denying he owned a timber company in his second debate with Senator John Kerry, I point you to this quote from Factcheck.org (a website endorsed by Dick Cheney, and we know how Cheney's running mate loves all of the many internets out there):

"President Bush himself would have qualified as a 'small business owner' under the Republican definition, based on his 2001 federal income tax returns. He reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise. However, 99.99% of Bush's total income came from other sources that year. (Bush also qualified as a 'small business owner' in 2000 based on $314 of 'business income,' but not in 2002 and 2003 when he reported his timber income as 'royalties' on a different tax schedule.)"

I'm sure they weren't trees, George, they're likely just weapons of mass construction. Let's clear cut and liberate that forest!

I know this is the sort of thing I don't normally post, but it's the sort of thing that infuriates me right now. This President can't be honest about anything. Has anyone even checked if he's given us his real name?

Been super busy, otherwise. I'll try to update, but let's just say if this were the dance marathon in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? I'd either be winning the prize very soon or keeling over and dying.

Edit/Correction: That’ll teach me to just read the quoted paragraph and not go and read the whole article. Kerry had a misleading source on the timber company, which was Factcheck themselves. In the linked article, just after the paragraph excerpted above, they say: "So Bush was wrong to suggest that he doesn't have ownership of a timber company. And Kerry was correct in saying that Bush's definition of 'small business' is so broad that Bush himself would have qualified as a "small business" in 2001 by virtue of the $84 in business income.

Kerry got his information from an article we posted Sept. 23 stating that Bush on his 2001 federal income-tax returns 'reported $84 of business income from his part ownership of a timber-growing enterprise.' We should clarify: the $84 in Schedule C income was from Bush's Lone Star Trust, which is actually described on the 2001 income-tax returns as an 'oil and gas production' business. The Lone Star Trust now owns 50% of the tree-growing company, but didn't get into that business until two years after the $84 in question. So we should have described the $84 as coming from an 'oil and gas' business in 2001, and will amend that in our earlier article." [credit to Denny Haynes for pointing this out]

It was a Kerry fumble, since it gave Bush the opportunity to dodge the question--which he would have done anyway, surely, but at least this time he had a decent excuse. I find it more disturbing in the end, though, that Shrub's smug delivery strikes some people as comedic timing.

Current Soundtrack: page 456 of The Everlasting printing; [for edit] Duran Duran, "Notorious (Live at Tower Records, Sunset)"

golightly@confessions123.com * The Website

[to leave comments, click on the time-stamp below, then scroll down on the new page] – All text (c) 2004 Jamie S. Rich