Takin' it on the road

So it seems that Frick and Frack are at it again, or so AP for Friday told us.

Former first lady Barbara Bush teamed up with her son the president on Friday in trying to drum up support among older Americans for his Social Security and Medicare plans. ...

At a senior center, and then before an invitation-only audience at a downtown civic center, the mother and son team promoted Bush's embattled Social Security restructuring plan and the new Medicare prescription drug program that takes effect Jan. 1.

And like a vaudeville team, they kept stepping on each other's lines and zinging each other.

Oh, and they were so cute and homey and clever and oh, weren't they just precious. And they gave such good advice!

[B]oth Bushes emphasized the importance of getting seniors to sign up for the new prescription drug plan, part of a Medicare restructuring enacted in December 2003.

As Bush started to talk up the plan, his mother turned to him and said, "Weren't you going to tell people they ought to ask doctors, lawyers, people they trust whether this is a good deal for them?"

"Yes, I am," he said, repeating what she said, and adding, "This is a good deal."

In other words, a couple of rich people of the sort who need Medicare the least and would personally benefit the most from cuts in the program are traveling around, telling seniors to seek the advice of other rich people of the sort who need Medicare the least and would personally benefit the most from cuts in the program if the new pile of bull hockey being peddled by the White House is a good idea.

The good news here is that the traveling road show is a sign of desperation.

Despite crisscrossing the country for months to promote the plan, his top second-term domestic priority, Bush has had little success in building public support for it.

Bush's trip came the same week in which House and Senate leaders threw in the towel on trying to get committee action on the legislation before the August congressional recess.

You can fool some of the people all of the time - you know the rest.

Footnote: On the other hand, James Thurber's piquant version of that was "You can fool too many of the people too much of the time." As Aron Nimzovich once remarked, "Sometimes a bit of humor contains more inner truth than the most serious seriousness."