<![CDATA[Remember President Bush's admonition during the third debate that, if you are healthy, not to get a flu shot this year? You don't? Well, let’s go to the tape for the president’s words!
But the President’s closest ally in the Senate, Bill Frist (R.-Tenn.) apparently isn’t susceptible to the power of Bush’s leadership. According to the Washington Post:
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (Tenn.), a heart surgeon, sent letters urging his 99 colleagues to get the shots because they mingle and shake hands with so many people, his spokeswoman, Amy Call, said. She said she did not know how many senators have taken his advice.
Doesn’t this guy think the rest of us interact with other people all day long? Maybe he’s just afraid of touching Democrats (with Dick Cheney more concerned about Democrats fucking themselves, it may be understandable). More likely, he just thinks he’s one of the elect, the better-than-us.
Since Bush and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson are calling for Americans at a lower risk of getting the flu not to get a flu shot this year, it is striking that Republican leaders on the Hill are shirking that directive. I did not hear in President Bush’s list of priority recipients of the flu shots “members of the Senate and House of Representatives.”
It would be something rather extraordinary if the Senate Republicans actually lived in the world they govern, wouldn’t it? The cognitive dissonance alone could cause two or three dozen strokes on the floor of that august chamber.
Yep, that’s leadership, Bush-style.]]>