From: gwb
To: Hank Blakely
Sent: Monday, April 8, 2001
Subject: Why a one-track mind is dangerous
 
This has been a very learnin' day.
 
This Mornin', Just like always, I brought Dick C His coffee (3/4 cup, no cream, 1/2 spoon sugar, don't stir), put it on his credenza, away from all his paperwork, and waited for him to notice me. After a moment he looked up, smilin', "Yes, George?".
 
I like ol' Dick C. He's the best one of the Two Dicks, not like Dick A, who is just what he looks like, mean. Dick A never gave nothin' to nobody, and don't ever intend to, and you can see that right there in his face. Maybe it's all that majority-leadin', I don't know, he's just a hard man to like. But no matter how busy he is, Dick C is always ready to talk with you and explain stuff - like today.
 
This time I asked him,: "We conservatives've got a majority in the Congress, we run the Supreme Court, got the most governors, and now the Presidency. But there's lots more liberals than us. How come we control everythin'?"
 
Dick put down his pen and thought for a minute. "Well, Georgie, I think it's partly because liberals always underestimate us. They tend to think they're the smart ones, and that we're just a bunch of retrograde troglodytes." (I looked that up. It ain't good). "What they forget is that some of us are pretty smart too. So often we have the element of surprise on our side."
 
"But I guess it's mainly a matter of focus. There are only a few things that we really want. We know what they are. We know where to go to get them. And we don't get distracted on the way."
 
He smiled. "Now, liberals aren't like that. Liberals get distracted by all kinds of things - so-called 'political correctness', so-called 'fair play', and so-called 'equity' ", (Here he was makin' big air-quotes with his fingers). "Now, maybe those are good things, and maybe they aren't, but it doesn't matter much either way if you don't have the power to put them into practice. It's not about 'good', it's about power."
 
Dick leaned forward, "And part of power is knowing what your enemies are up to, Georgie. For example: if you walk up to a liberal and hit him on the head with a hammer, of course he's going to get mad, but he's also going to want to try to figure out why you did that. And the less sense it makes to him, the more inclined he'll be to believe it didn't actually happen. So you can do it every day, and each time he'll say 'hey, what you got there, a hammer?". And you can repeat this maybe a dozen or so times before he starts ducking when he sees you coming."
 
I said, "like Florida..."
 
He nodded, "Precisely. But the wonder of it is, even if they were able to figure out what was coming, they still wouldn't know what to do about it. You could have a bunch of liberals on a railroad track, a big train coming straight at them, and people all around shouting 'look out, there's a train!'. They wouldn't listen, of course - because they're liberals - so the train would hit them - BAM! - little bits of liberal all over. Well, of course, all the surviving liberals would be all worked up. They'd complain about how 'unfair' the engineer was, how we need more regulations, how there should be more crossing lights, warning signs, guards on the trains, and everything else you can think of, when all they really had to do was get off the damn track."
 
Well, shoot, any fool could understand that.
 
Your pal the Prez.
 
W