God Do I Miss Dave Barry's Weekly Columns

While reading the Boston Globe's Sunday magazine yesterday, I found myself laughing out loud until tears leaked out of my eyes as I read Dave Barry's 2009 year-in-review column. He's able to put the year into such perfect perspective.

Best two observations:

About the swine flu:

"The big health story in April is the rapid spread of swine flu, a dangerous new virus strain developed by the makers of Purell. Public anxiety over the flu increases when Vice President Joe Biden, demonstrating his gift for emitting statements, declares on the Today show that he would not recommend traveling by commercial airplane or subway. A short while later, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs assures reporters that he is 'not aware of any 'Vice President Joe Biden.''"

About the White House State Dinner party crashers:

". . . in a Washington couple, Tareq and Michaele Salahi, penetrate heavy security and enter the White House, a feat that Joe Biden has yet to manage. As details of the incident emerge, an embarrassed Secret Service is forced to admit that not only did the couple crash a state dinner, but they also had met and shaken hands with the president, and they 'may have served briefly in the Cabinet.'"

Made me wish that Dave Barry was still writing his weekly, syndicated columns. No one has been able to fill his shoes. Not yet anyway.

Image credit: Jesse Lefkowitz/Boston Globe.

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Gibbs & the Cell Phones

Being the White House press secretary seems like a cruddy job. You've got to field questions about subjects about which you might not have a firm grasp. You might be asked to subvert the truth, to lie, to pretend you don't know something that you DO in fact know, to try not to cringe when you hear yourself say ridiculous statements like when Robert Gibbs had to, with a straight face, tell us what the vice president MEANT to say when he said he wouldn't want anyone in his family to be in a confined space with the swine flu going around.

That said, I laughed when I saw this video of Gibbs' response to THREE reporters' cell phones going off during a nationally televised press briefing. I only wish he'd been able to snag that last phone from the CBS reporter and chuck it out the door with the other one.

Honestly, don't these folks get that it's respectful to put your phones on vibrate, particularly after one interruption, never mind THREE. If I can figure out how to put my cell phone on vibrate when I'm in a movie theater or at church, certainly White House reporters can do that during a press briefing. Maybe Gibbs needs to run a public service announcement before commencing the briefing: Silence your cell phones. Or else we'll toss 'em out of the room. (Link to the video here.)

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: WH Spokesman Tells Reporters What Biden 'Meant to Say' on Swine Flu

Who didn't see this coming? The White House's awkward backing off from what Vice President Joe Biden said on the Today Show this morning, that he wouldn't go in any confined area like an airplane or a subway while the swine flu is spreading.

You had to feel badly for WH Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, having to stand there at the podium, on national TV and, with a straight face, BS his way through this quagmire, where the president tells everyone to remain calm, wash their hands and stay home if sick, while the vice president says he for one isn't gonna get trapped in some subway car potentially loaded with people carrying the swine flu.

ABC's Jake Tapper asked Gibbs about Biden's statements and Gibbs talked in nonsensical circles saying that what Biden was really saying was that if you feel sick you should take precautions. To which Tapper replied, "With all due respect . . . that's not even remotely close to what he said."

"I'm telling you what he meant to say," Gibbs said as the reporters guffawed. (Link to the question and answer here.)



Meanwhile, in another development on the swine flu front, the Associated Press reported that a White House aide and his family are being tested for the flu. "A member of the U.S. delegation that helped prepare Energy Secretary Steven Chu's trip to Mexico City has demonstrated flu-like symptoms and his family members have tested probable for swine flu."

Suburban Mom's Political Fix: Was Biden Truth-Telling About the Swine Flu or What?

Last night President Barack Obama told America not to panic about the swine flu pandemic. Be reasonable, he suggested, wash your hands and cover your mouth when you cough. If you become sick, he said, stay home, contact a doctor if you suspect that you or a loved one has flu-like symptoms.

Then this morning Vice President Joe Biden told viewers of the Today Show, "I wouldn't go anywhere in a confined space right now." He even seemed to be suggesting that people should avoid places where there are lots of other people. Like the NBA and NHL playoffs being played in confined arenas? Baseball games being played in parks where the concession areas are confined? Indoor concerts? Movie theaters? Malls? Public bathrooms? Schools?

My questions are: Does Biden know more than he's letting on and just being honest, on a personal level? Or is he overreacting?

It's really hard to determine who's being truthful here, the federal officials who are talking "mitigation" and preaching "reasonableness," while I know full well that they're engaging in a cost-benefit analysis where they're weighing the number of deaths with the economic impact of a public, Biden-like shut-down on an already weakened economy. There'd be a steep economic cost in terms of dollars that'd happen in the wake of this kind of a recommendation, which, I can only imagine would be issued in only the severest of flu cases, so as not to hurt the economy further. That's understandable.

But when I hear the vice president -- a guy who took Amtrak back-and-forth from Delaware to D.C. during his Senate days, someone who earned the nicknamed "Amtrak Joe" -- say he wouldn't want to be in a confined space, that gives me reason to pause and wonder what the internal, White House projections are for the impact of this flu and what costs are being weighed against what benefits.