All of the news and some of the opinion in Dead Parrot come from cited sources. The remainder of the opinion is that of the editor, David Smith, a 60-year-old English teacher in Milton, Massachusetts, who despises corrupt language and its use by the Bush administration as a dishonest cover for self-serving policies.
The name Dead Parrot comes from a Monty Python skit in which a pet store customer returns to complain that the parrot he bought a few minutes earlier is dead. Despite all contrary evidence, the clerk insists that the bird is "resting" and attempts to muddle matters by pointing out its "beautiful plumage"--more or less in the style of Donald Rumsfeld waxing enthusiastic over the accuracy of a cruise missile or Bush himself saying with a straight face that his tax cut will benefit all Americans.
Dead Parrot is now being published on an occasional basis as Dead Parrot Bulletin. You can get it directly by emailing a request to me or look for it here at the web site.
DID SOMEONE SAY "FLIPFLOP"?
"No one wants to be a war president. I want to be the peace president."
--George W. Bush, as recorded by NPR, 7/23/04
WHAT IF HE'D WANTED
TO MAKE IT POLITICAL?
"[Bush] decided to send the vice president for 9/11 as a way to keep it nonpolitical."
--Mayor Bloomberg on Bush's decision to have Dick Cheney represent the White House at this year's New York City memorial service (Times, 9/6)
BRING 'EM ON!--THE PREQUEL
"If some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come get me. I'll just be waiting for the bastard."
--America's Number One chickenhawk to an overprotective Secret Service agent on 9/11, as portrayed in the showtime "docuDRAMA" "DC 9/11: Time of Crisis." (Times, 9/5)
CYNICISM DEFINED
"In order to placate the critics and the cynics about intentions of the United States, we need to produce evidence."
--Bush on his unshakable faith that Saddam had a weapons "program" (Boston Globe, 7/31)
SPINNING FOR PINOCCHIO
On July 18, a "senior administration official" briefed reporters on how the African uranium claim got into the State of the Union speech.
The transcript of the briefing includes the following exchange:
Question: Is the President comfortable about making assertions that the State Department thinks are highly dubious?
Official: The President was comfortable at the time, based on the information that was provided in his speech. The President of the United States is not a fact checker.
PARTY OUT WITH THE GOP
From the letters column of the Times, 4/28:
"Since the worst terrorist attack in American history, which took the life of my brother, occurred in New York on September 11, it seems appropriate that President Bush will be making his re-election bid from that city at that time in 2004.
"Perhaps the millions of unemployed Americans, veterans whose benefits have been threatened, families of dead civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq, working people who lost their pensions to corporate fraud, and 41 million Americans without health insurance can come to town and join him in celebrating the other achievements of his first term."
--David Potorti, Cary, NC
THE 60-SECOND VERSION
"Americans are leading busy lives...But if they can have an instant uinderstanding of what the president is talking about by seeing 60 seconds of television, you accomplish your goals as communicators."
--White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett on the stage managing of Bush appearances (Times, 5/16)
HIGH TIMES AT GITMO
"They're receiving far better treatment than they received in the life that they were living previously."
--Ari Fleischer on the Guantanamo prisoners, the day after the 27th attempted suicide at the internment camp (Globe, 5/29)
NOT SO IMPLAUSIBLE
The 5/4 edition of Spain's second largest daily newspaper ran as a straight story some news that it had picked up from The Onion: that a new Fox reality show Called "Appointed by America" would be choosing the next ruler of Iraq. (The Nation, 6/9)
YOU'RE SURE HE'S A DEMOCRAT?
Joe Lieberman is offering a bold alternative for goosing the American economy back to life: tax cuts! (Globe, 5/29)
ANTHROPOLOGY 101
"I am also told there is a particular tribe, a small tribe, that lives by stealing."
--USAID head Andrew Natsios, explaining American occupiers' problems establishing order in Iraq (Globe, 6/23)
THE VISION THING
"When it fits into a picture, they blow it up. And it's not a precise process, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't."
--Defense think-tank spokesman John Pike on how intelligence is being used in the military's serial attempts to kill Saddam (Globe, 6/24)
OPERATION IRAQI FREEDOM:
THE SEQUEL
"Stop right there. If you take a picture, I will break your camera."
--Spec. Arthur Myers, barring reporters from a village bombed by the US (Times, 6/25)
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE DEPARTMENT
"Right now, I'm focused on the people's business in Washington, D.C."
--George W. Bush at a fund-raising event in California (Times, 6/28)
A RANDOM ASSOCIATION?
"There was kind of an attachment to the word 'America' with war."
--Bush to African journalists, explaining why the United States might have an undeservedly bad reputation (Globe, 7/7)
