Beating Around the Bush PDF
Preview Beating Around the Bush
Table of Contents Title Page Preface to the Paperback Edition Preface to the First Edition Introduction Economics Lesson Trouble in the Middle East God Bless Saving Time Let’s Not Forget the Lobbyists Which God Is Your God? Yesterday’s Enemy Dinner at the Darbys’ Book Flogging Shadow Government Safe Deposit for Sale The Young Audience It’s Cherry Blossom Time Malice on Purpose Red Alert The FBI Changes Its Ways Declaration Things in My Attic Another Icon Ashes to Ashes I Spy-You Spy Between Iraq and a Hard Place Will the Real Saddam Stand Up? I Hate Saddam To Lose One’s Center Games Children Play Come Fly With Me Foreign Affairs for Dummies The Last Pill Losing Your Identity Whose Reality Is It? The Fight for Duct Tape Yelling at the TV The Tip of the Iceberg The War Over Abstinence Bumper Stickers Weapons of Mass Destruction I’ll Always Have Paris Americo-Shaft Airlines Freedom of Speech The Political War Spam the Greatest Generation James Bond and WMD The Bookies The Iraqi Stock Market Bless the World I Won’t Be Home for Christmas Who Remembers Watergate? Three-Letter Word Poor Rupert Murdoch Senior Citizens Vote Too The Ten Commandments Power Anonymous A Great American The Big Leak Unnecessary Roughness But Seriously Speaking Wal-Mart Talk Show A Sexual Revolution Gotcha Saddam Holiday Greetings Saving Britney’s Marriage The Opera Isn’t Over Suppose They Were Wrong War of the Steroids Four Letter Words and More Duck Hunting with Scalia Just Good Friends—Bah Who Killed Jesus? The Good Americans Canada, My Canada The Blues Brothers Soldiers of Fortune Torture 101 The Rich are Different Michael, Say It Isn’t So The Trial “Oh Darn” How Many Wars? Commissions for Boo-Boos Image Control Couch Potatoes Meat Loaf Husseinku Compassionate Conservatism Left Behind Trial Lawyers—Who Needs Them? Do It Our Way The Dan Rather Factor Our Long Nightmare Is Over Once Again Congressional No Flu Zone Slam Dunk Crate and Baghdad In God We Trust A Vivid Inauguration First Junk Call Making Extra Money Social Security Blues Flip-Flop Diplomacy Harvard, Dear Harvard Well Hello, Martha Smoking Guns A Constitutional Solution Oil Tasting For Snobs The News The Quiet Ambassador Happy Mountain Where Were You? Hate in America Bless This House You Can’t Sue Me Canceling Out O’Reilly Darwin Go Home Katrina Once Upon a Time in New Orleans I’ll Drink to FEMA A Leak in the Basement Torture Airlines Let’s Pretend The Truth About Global Warming The Nine Trillion Dollar Heist Good News A Call from Big Brother About the Author Also by Art Buchwald Copyright Page EVERY WRITER WHO CAN’T SPELL or is never grammatically correct needs an editor. Cathy Crary has fit this role since 1982. I therefore dedicate this book to her. She laughs at everything, but still wields a red pencil in her left hand. Preface to the Paperback Edition WHEN BEATING AROUND THE BUSH was published in hardcover I had two legs and great kidneys. Now I have one leg and wounded kidneys. The paperback version of Beating Around the Bush had nothing to do with these losses. Bush is still captain of the Titanic. There are icebergs all over Washington. Some of the White House stars have left the ship. Some of them have become lobbyists, some have escaped indictment, and others have been writing books. Despite all this, nothing has changed since the hardcover, except that several columns have been added and the beating has not stopped. The main difference is that the softcover is much cheaper. The good thing is, although I went to a hospice, I haven’t died. It has made my publisher very happy. Preface to the First Edition BEFORE I BEGIN, I would like to say that I am prepared to go to jail rather than reveal to a grand jury the names of my sources for this book. The reason is I had no sources—I made everything up. The characters I mention, such as President George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, former Attorney General John Ashcroft, Bill O’Reilly, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Martha Stewart, Michael Jackson, Vladimir Putin, Saddam Hussein, Osama bin Laden, Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair, Prince Charles, and the Boston Red Sox, are all fictitious and do not resemble anyone living, dead, or in between. It is hard to believe, but for all of us these have been the best of times and the worst of times—depending on if you are in the top two percent of wealthiest Americans, have health insurance, a decent pension plan, and a credit card that doesn’t bounce on you. These past few years have been a gold mine of material for a columnist. For one reason, our leaders keep screwing up and refuse to admit it. As you will read, there are no bad guys in Washington, there are only good guys doing bad things. The uppermost subject on our minds has been single-sex marriage. No civilized society can have people of the same gender getting into bed together. Then we worried about the environment. Everyone agrees global warming should be stopped, and if it isn’t, Anchorage will soon look like Miami. I have also dealt with creationsim versus Darwinism. Did God create the earth in six days, or did we originate from monkeys? I discuss this because a book that mentions God sells more copies to human beings than one that appeals to apes. I also deal with the Iraq war. It is not my position that it was a good war or a bad war, a just war or an unjust war, a smart war or the dumbest war we have ever gotten into. My position is that it is the only war we’ve got, so we have to support it. Do you want to know how I feel about torture? Personally, I am against it, but
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