Funny Girl Spell Check

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?


Since we're talking about Hollywood culture, I thinks it's appropriate to give some attention to that brilliant lib strategist, Barbra Streisand.

In the Statements section of her official website, the soon to be 64-year-old singer offers some deep thoughts on American government.

It reads:

(Excerpts)

This section contains statements and speeches by Ms. Streisand.

The Importance of Balanced Power in Congress ...Barbra Streisand

Posted on February 28, 2006

The party that holds the majority in both the House and the Senate controls the entire congressional agenda. Everything from what bills are considered, to how long committees debate them, to whether bills get reported out onto the floor, and finally whether a vote gets scheduled, is all determined by the leadership of both the House and the Senate. In the past, there have been instances when members of congress, in their oversight of the President, were courageous enough, regardless of their party affiliation, to step up to their constitutional obligation to be a check and balance on the White House. In the 1970’s, during the Nixon Adminstration, serious political curruption arose and the Republican leadership stepped up and took responsibilty by holding hearings and subpoening administration officials. Eventually, the President was forced to resign rather than face impeachment preceedings that likely would have been successful. It is clear that today's Republican Congressional leaders are not prepared to hold this President accountable. Therefore, it’s critical that people elect members of the Democratic party to the House and Senate so that a new leadership can take control. Only if this occurs, can we even begin to imagine a time when there will be a myriad of investigations so desperatly needed on so many issues…let alone the ultimate investigation which would involve the conduct of the President of the United States and the determination of whether his actions warrented impeachment proceedings.

What more will it take for the Republican leadership to finally show some integrity and hold Bush accountable for his actions? Our congress, who is supposed to serve as the checks and balances of the executive branch of government, has completely lost their voice. First, Bush ignored clear warnings before 9/11 about an impending terrorist attack. He then lied to the public about the presence of WMDs in Iraq and rushed to unilaterally invade the country after promising to work with the United Nations. Now, more than four years after the worst attack on American soil, Bush and his adminstration have yet to capture Osama bin Laden, the person responsible for 9/11. The Republican majority continued to be silent during the President’s horrible mismanagement of Hurricane Katrina. They turned their back when the President appointed inexperienced inept buddies to the most important government positions. They looked in the other direction when their fellow Republican leaders came under indictment for fraud and corruption. And they continued to do nothing as the President trampled on the American public’s most basic rights by wiretapping phone lines and conducting warrantless searches ouside of the congressionally mandated rules of the Federal Court.

When no one thought that this President could push his luck any further, the Adminstration disclosed that they are in the midst of closing a $6.8 billion deal to give a company owned by the United Arab Emirates management of six American ports. The UAE has ties to the September 11 attacks. In fact, two of the hijackers from 9/11 were from the UAE and money for the Taliban has been laundered through UAE banks. The UAE recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government when the rest of the world turned their back on the regime. And a study by U.S. News & World Report stated in December that the UAE was notorious for its smuggling, money laundering and drug trafficking in support of terrorists. As the Bush administration weathered the outcry from across the political spectrum for this absurd decision, the Administration continues their support by claiming that the UAE has been a valuable partner in fighting the ‘War on Terror’ and that discrimination against foreign companies would be un-American.

But as the coverage continues, the true motives of Bush's position are starting to slip out. If this Administration lies to the American people about the reasons to wage war, the public should expect them to be dishonest about virtually anything. So it is not surprising to find out that the while the Bush Administration is trying to quietly slip this port security deal under the radar, they are simultaneously negotiating a free trade agreement with the UAE. Why be surprised? This President, ‘jokingly’ stated "If this were a dictatoriship it would be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator." Over the last 5 years, Bush’s leadership has resembled that of a dictatorship. The arrogance of this C student who maligns his opponents’ crediblity by calling them flip floppers, is the biggest flip flopper himself! When debating Al Gore during the 2000 presidential elections, Bush spoke against nation building, yet went into Irag a year later to national build…which we now see has resulted in disaster.

Yikes!

Let's not even bother getting into the content of her statement. Let's look at the technical aspects.

Streisand has some serious spelling issues.
Mem’ries, may be beautiful and yet
What’s too painful to remember
We simply choose to forget

Is Streisand singing about forgetting how to spell?

Is proper spelling painful for her?

It's ironic that this great intellectual talks of the "arrogance of this C student" when referring to President Bush.

It's not only ironic, it's really funny.

It reminds me of when "D" student John Kerry claimed to be far more intelligent than Bush. Of course, Yale records prove that Bush out-performed the long-winded one.

Streisand's bloviations reveal that she doesn't learn from past mistakes.

She has a history of embarrassing misspellings and misquotes.

Remember this?

On October 28, 2002, Paul Bond wrote:Barbra Streisand's misspelled, mis-faxed instructions to Minority Leader Dick "Gebhardt" is perhaps today's most infamous example of celebrity punditry.

Industries "run by big Republican donors and insiders, clearly have much to gain if we go to war against Iraq," she informed Gephardt. Also misspelled in her memo was "Sadam."

Babs handled the highly publicized gaffe by blaming an underling and bragging about being a former spelling bee champion.

She also famously told a $500-a-ticket crowd at a Democratic fund raiser that, "In the words of William Shakespeare, 'Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword'."

Trouble is, Shakespeare never said any such thing. The quote is from an Internet hoax.

Funny that Streisand would make a point of using the President's grades to take a swipe at him, given her own minimal schooling. Streisand's formal education ended with high school. Obviously, she didn't get a bachelor's degree from Yale, nor did she get an MBA from Harvard.

In addition to lacking education, Streisand lacks character. She had the arrogance to blame someone else for the errors in a letter she wrote to Dick "Gebhardt." Rather than having the grace to take personal responsibility for not checking the final draft of the letter for mistakes, she had to find a scapegoat to take the heat.

Then, she makes a fool out of herself by quoting lines of Shakespeare that don't exist.

No one is perfect. We all make spelling errors. We all make mistakes. I certainly make my share.

The issue here is not typos. It's that Streisand wants to claim completely undeserved intellectual superiority over President Bush.


"A spell checker! a spell checker! my kingdom for a spell checker!"

Shakespeare wrote that.