01/06/2009 5:45 pm
POV
Who Do You Think You're Talking To? by Margo Howard
Editor’s Note: A longtime journalist, Margo Howard went into the family business (her mother was the fabled Ann Landers) in the 1990s as Dear Prudence. Her broad experience and understanding of human nature provide answers for the troubled — and entertainment for everyone else. Click here to read her column on Yahoo! Margo will be joining us as wowOwow’s official advice columnist beginning January 29. We can’t wait!
I grew up hearing my mother say to me, the television newscasters or the newspaper she was holding: “Who do you think you’re talking to?” The translation of this would be roughly akin to saying, “What do you take me for, a fool?” Or, as a lot of people said, back in the day, “Tell it to Sweeney.” Now I find myself saying the exact same thing to television newscasters or the newspaper I am holding … and the subject is most always politics.
Example: Barack Obama and his family were denied early access to Blair House, the official government guest house within the White House blockade perimeter. The about-to-be first family needed to come to Washington earlier than the usual time because the little girls were starting their new school on Monday, January 5. Laura Bush’s office said Blair House could not be made available to them because there were “previously scheduled functions.” Mrs. Bush’s office was not forthcoming about what these functions might be. My guess is that they are farewell parties for the RNC and other Republicans leaving town. There was major stonewalling when press people inquired which people were booked for Blair House. The First Lady’s office would only say, “The space is not available until the traditional date, January 15, and arrangements cannot be changed.”
This situation was definitely a “Who do you think you’re talking to?” moment. As The New York Times pointed out, keeping the first family and their four security teams at a five-star hotel is out-of-this-world expensive … and at a time when the government is reduced to printing money, everybody and his dog is getting a “bailout” and the taxpayer is getting nicked for everything. At some point we will know who these previously scheduled people were, and then the question will be asked: Why were they not moved to one of the White House’s 132 rooms, or the State Department function rooms … or a hotel?
Then there is the recently uncovered information that, as a senator, Hillary Clinton smoothed the way for a New York state developer. When he got federal assistance and tax-exempt bonds for his project, Bill Clinton’s foundation received a check for $100,000. Mrs. Clinton’s spokesman said, when pressed about this piece of information, that the senator would have done the same for anyone trying to get something done in the state of New York. To this explanation of amazingly coincidental timing I would simply ask, “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
Then, too, there is our vice president, Darth Vader, he of the curling lip, and the idiot Alberto Gonzales saying everything they did was to benefit the country – and that we’re better off for it! Interestingly, Don Rumsfeld is not saying much of anything. Bush is still blaming bum intelligence for everything, and, well, really, there is no other question to ask except, “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
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