* Trying to sell Medicare "reform" to seniors...

[madinmaryland]

Hardballs Replace Softballs, and Bush Takes a Few Swings

At first it looked as if it was going to be another warm bath of a White House question-and-answer session with President Bush. There was a happy group of retirees arranged on a stage, a poster in red, white and blue that proclaimed "Strengthening Medicare" and a peppy president with microphone in hand.

But at the Riderwood Village retirement community last week in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, Md., something different happened: the president got hit with hardballs by the crowd of 80-somethings. Not only did the retirees, many of them Democrats and former government officials, ask sharp questions about the day's topic, the Medicare prescription drug program, they took on Mr. Bush on global warming and nuclear war.

"I guess I'm one of the three left standing Americans who did the negotiation of the nonproliferation treaty," one of the retirees, Lawrence Weiler, a former official of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, told Mr. Bush. But the treaty can't hold, Mr. Weiler said, if the position of the United States is that it will initiate a nuclear war "if it is necessary." Would the president consider a "no-first-use" policy instead?

..snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/20/politics/20letter.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[BOSSHOG]

1. bush white house spokesman rush limbaugh

recently said that "reform" was a liberal code word. I guess the gop needs to get their talking points calibrated. If rove wants bush to having nothing but malleable audiences he better keep the monkey out of senior centers. They don't a fuck about nothing but the truth, and you know how well the drug addicted military deserter does when confronted with the truth.

[tanyev]

4. Oh, I think "reform" is a liberal code word only when spoken

by a liberal. When spoken by a Republican, it is a code word for "privatization".

[Mnemosyne]

2. Let's hope they teach him how they feel about it like this:

Thanks to the daily Stock Market Watch by Oz!

[tanyev]

3. HA-HA! Who prepped that audience? Something tells me

they're going to need to spend more time with their family pretty soon.