Happy Furry Puppy Story Time with Norbizness

Ask the President #5: Columbus, Ohio

[Remember, the final Re-Election Slogan Poll is here. The first four Ask the Presidents are here, here, here, and here.]

Jeez, I've been negligent with these. For this session, I will alternate: the above the fold entries (#1 through #4) will alter the questions and crowd reaction parentheticals, and leave the President's responses in tact. However, once the questions start coming from the audience (#5 through #9 in the extended entry), they will remain in tact and the answers will be altered. Clear as an unmuddied lake? Here we go...
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(1) PRESIDENT: Tell us -- first of all, they have told me that they bought a home.

MR. JAMINET: That's right.

THE PRESIDENT: First time home-buyer.

MR. JAMINET: You can ask as many times as you want, the answer's the same.

THE PRESIDENT: Why?

MR. JAMINET: Because sleeping in a refrigerator box wasn't cutting it.

THE PRESIDENT: Good, well, most people buy a home for their families. That's good. (Laughter(?))... Now, what did you do with all your own money?

MRS. JAMINET: Well, I'm a stay-at-home mom, so it's allowed me to do that and scratch lottery tickets till my fingers go numb.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. (Applause.)
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(2) THE PRESIDENT: We've got an interesting story with Linda Wagner. Linda, thanks for coming. What's your job description?

MS. WAGNER: Minesweeper, 3 hours a day. Solitaire, 2 hours a day. Drawing fan art of Jude Law, usually bare-chested and riding a Pegasus, 4 hours a day. Oh, and lunch.

THE PRESIDENT: Great. And how does it work?

MS. WAGNER: What? Minesweeper? It's a little complicated, but I've managed to clear the medium-sized field in 78 seconds. It's an office record.

THE PRESIDENT: Let me ask you something. Obviously somebody is looking for workers in those fields, I guess is why they're retraining people.

MS. WAGNER: You never know when the country's going to have a national emergency and call up health care secretaries to actually sweep mines in the Persian Gulf. Except there's no multicolored numbers telling you how many mines are adjacent to your current location.

THE PRESIDENT: Desperate need.
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(3) THE PRESIDENT: Pass that over to Jerry. See, the reason Linda came is because I was convinced that she would be able to explain it better than me, and she did. (Laughter.)

MS. HURLEY: Huh?

THE PRESIDENT: But I appreciate that. You didn't have to agree with her, Jerry. (Laughter.) All right, Jerry.

MS. HURLEY: Who's Jerry? What's going on?

THE PRESIDENT: How are you?

MS. HURLEY: A little confused. I haven't felt this way since I was watching Birth of a Nation as a teenager, and some local rednecks...

THE PRESIDENT: Okay. You don't need to tell us your age, like you told me earlier.

MS. HURLEY: I am 113.

THE PRESIDENT: And proud of it, I want you to know.

MS. HURLEY: Proud of my race, at least. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: And you're probably a grandmother.

MS. HURLEY: No, I've outlived all of them. There's still a greedy little fat-faced great-great-grandchild I need to 'attend' to. (Knowing "oooos".)
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(4) THE PRESIDENT: Finally, Phil Derrow is with us, small business guy, CEO and President, Ohio Transmission Corporation, New Albany, Ohio. Welcome.

MR. DERROW: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: What's your business do?

MR. DERROW: We manufacture fart-proof bedsheets. No, seriously. Clean out your fucking ears, sizzlechest. Ohio TRANSMISSION Corporation.

THE PRESIDENT: Good, that's -- keep saying that, will you? (Laughter.)

MR. DERROW: Sizzlechest. Sizzlechest. Sizzlechest.

THE PRESIDENT: How many?

MR. DERROW: That's three sizzlechests, sizzlechest. (Wild applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: See, here's what's happening in America today... Let me ask you something: Are you going to make investment?

MR. DERROW: Yeah, we're gonna buy the shit out of some fucking equipment.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, see, what that means is -- that's accountant talk. He's not an accountant, though. He hires accountants, right?

MR. DERROW: Yeah, this guy is the fucking best. He'll itemize that, he'll depreciate this, he'll bash your fucking head in with a fucking adding machine.

THE PRESIDENT: That's good. (Laughter.)
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Now switching to the extended entry....

(5) Q I'm a pastor of a church in Lincoln County, which is just east of here. And I've agreed to be the chairman of a Christian coalition for that county. Our church has grown and we're very interested in trying to acquire two old buildings in the Newark City that are kind of dilapidated or falling down, and out-of-date put a rehabilitation, reorientation kind of job vocational training there, for people to finish their GEDs, for men and women to give them some basic faith training and to help them rediscover what they can become. But it's been difficult to know how to acquire or plug into faith-based funds --

THE PRESIDENT: Enough already! Sheesh! First off, I did hear 'Christian', right? Well, that improves your chances immeasurably. I find that bringing a live snake to the local Compassionate Faith Based Headquarters will prove your charismatic credentials and scare the local Compassion Coordinator into coughing up the funds.
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(6) Q Good afternoon, Mr. President. My name is Andre Porter, I'm a 24-year-old law student here in Columbus, and a proud member of FBA. We sang a song for you today before you got here.

THE PRESIDENT: Was it "I Want To Know What Love Is" by Foreigner?

Q We sang two songs. The second song was about anti-violence and anti-drugs. And we grow up in an era right now where the culture is so centered on violence and drugs, and so our group -- the song that we wrote, these gentlemen here, FBA, we wanted to know what you have planned for our generation to stop violence and increase the goodness of our culture?

THE PRESIDENT: What the fuck? Holy shit, that's lame. I mean, even I, as a 58-year-old with no discernible pop culture reference points, can tell that your whole flow and presentation suck donkey balls.
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(7) Q I'm from Colombia.

THE PRESIDENT: Colombia, que bueno. Bienvenidos. Don't let the perros make you nervous. No reason to be nervous if you're not holding. (Boos). Oh come on.

Q I've been here for 20 years. I just took my wife and my kids to Colombia -- Colombia is a country that has a lot of problems. At this point -- your help and -- (inaudible) --

THE PRESIDENT: Well, that's great. Didn't catch that last part. But I'm sure that 50cc's of "Just Say No" will pretty much take care of it.
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(8) Q Mr. President, thank you for your stance on the sanctity of marriage between men and women. (Applause.) What can we do -- what can we do to keep judges who find in favor of relationships between homosexuals?

THE PRESIDENT: I assume you mean "keep out judges". Nothing, unfortunately, so long as this separation of powers nonsense keeps hamstringing us.
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(9) Q Hello. I just want to say that, being a young Christian, it's been very encouraging to me to see you as our country's leader, being so open about your faith. (Cries of "Suck-up!" and "Brown-noser!")

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, it's really courageous to talk about Jesus in a country that's 90% Christian. I was really putting my ass on the line.

Q And I was just wondering, do you feel that your faith has been beneficial to your decision-making process? And if so, how?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, let's put it this way. I am not a smart man. If I think that I've discovered something through prayer, that's great, because I've been very clear from the beginning that I'm not going to discover it through research, reading, or critical thinking. And that's the lesson. The last shall be first. And I'm first, baby.

Posted by Norbizness at September 9, 2004 12:28 AM