Friday, April 16, 2010

President Puffery

I’m not a fan of Domino’s Pizza, but they have a commercial running which I do like. They have a guy standing in front of a courthouse, and they mention a suit they claim to have brought against Papa John’s Pizza. To hear the Domino’s people, when confronted with claims they made on television, their attorneys said their advertisements were “puffery”. The Domino’s people went on to explain that the word means a statement classified as an opinion, not fact, that no reasonable person would take literally.” Yeah, that brought up visions of President Pony-in-the-Pile.

Let’s take NASA, for example. Seems that the President who never saw an expansion of government he did not like, made an exception when it comes to protecting America’s investment in space exploration and technological innovation. Of course, he made a few statements that bugged the heck out of real pioneers and heroes in the space program, so Waffles backed up and allowed as how he was just “refocusing” NASA’s mission. Hinted at an extra shuttle mission to keep some Kennedy jobs and plugged some things into other projects just so he could say he cared, but made sure that the Johnson Space Center got the shaft. That and everything else in Texas.

Eventually, it even dawned on President I-Love-Me that being so obviously anti-Texas was not the wisest course, since so much of NASA depends on the JSC staff and facilities. So, President I-Won-Dammit promised that man would go to Mars in his lifetime. Apparently, Obama means someone from China or Russia, because his budget has no provision at all for a lunar flight, let alone a Mars mission. But President Oprah has never been one to depend on facts when speechifying a vision. Why, simply getting elected solved Global Warming, Nuclear Weapons and World Hunger, or why else did Obama get a Nobel Peace Prize? The fact that he not only has no plans whatsoever that could even remotely be said to lead to a Mars Mission, along with the chainsaw act on NASA’s budget and staffing, make it quite plain that President OneTermPlease is simply blowing his bilge in public again.

The lesson to take from the Mars Mission Lie, er, puffery, is that no promise made by Obama should ever be taken seriously. Public debate on all bills? Tax cuts for everyone making less than a quarter-mill? Spending that Trillion on genuine needs for the nation? Actually listening to anyone but His Inflatulence? Please. This is a guy who makes Joe Isuzu look like Abe Lincoln for integrity.

I can’t say I’m inclined to buy a pizza from Domino’s, but at least they pegged the Con Artist in Chief. However inadvertently.

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