As it happens, the crisis is for the desk of Ellen Sauerbrey, the Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration. Sauerbrey, of course, was given the job despite literally no background in responding to refugee crises, setting up camps, delivering emergency supplies, and/or mobilizing international responses to humanitarian crises. Her only "qualification" for the job seemed to be that she was a Republican activist looking for a job in the administration. (Sauerbrey is a former member of the Republican National Committee and was Bush's Maryland state campaign chairwoman in 2000.)
Heckuva job, redux. Actually, let's just quote Apocalypse Now and leave it as the default response until further notice:
Willard: They told me that you had gone totally insane, and that your methods were unsound.
Kurtz: Are my methods unsound?
Willard: I don't see any method at all, sir.
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3 comments:
The selection of Ellen Sauerbrey is ever so simple and logical. She, like her nominator, speak the same, simple, clear, cogent language:
"It is certainly recognition that government policies have to be supported with the family. That, some of the things we have done in the United States, and we have to look at ourselves and recognize that government tax policies, government welfare policies, as the previous speakers have said - no-fault divorce, sex education have not been healthy to the promotion of the family." (from http://defendmarriage.com/ellen.asp)
Even a child can parse that statement. If only there were a child that could tell us what unearthly language Bush and Sauerbrey are speaking.
I figured out the language. Noting the strange pacing and slightly anachronistic tone, I thought of ancient languages, and remembered that fundamentalist Christians love Aramaic. As I'm sure you remember, the Kaddish is in Aramaic. Here's the opening stanza:
Strange now to think of you, gone without corsets & eyes, while I walk on the sunny pavement of Greenwich Village.
downtown Manhattan, clear winter noon, and I've been up all night, talking, talking, reading the Kaddish aloud, listening to Ray Charles blues shout blind on the phonograph the rhythm the rhythm--and your memory in my head three years after--
And read Adonais' last triumphant stanzas aloud--wept, realizing how we suffer--
I think the similarities in style seem to confirm Aramaic, even though the message is different.
Aramaic? Interesting, and quite close, but a more detailed linguistic analysis indicates that it is the far newer language "Slambovian." Compare the cited text, if you will, with this liberal translation (from the Slambovian, courtesy of Radio Free Slambovia) of the epic text, Genius, by the national poet, Gandalf:
I think I lost it once again
I'm out on the street wanting the end
And even friends do not pretend
They understand me anymore
My head has gotten so damn big
I cannot even wear my wig
And girls are dogs and men are pigs
And where is God?
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