I feel like I'm in a time warp. Are you sure this paragraph wasn't written about Reagan circa 1983?

Given how anti-business Fox and Republicans are, it would've been fish in a barrel.

The Twinkie Defense is usually construed to mean it was claimed White eating Twinkies was the cause of his depression and violent behavior.

This is wrong.

What was claimed was that White eating Twinkies was a symptom of his depression.

From the article you cite:

In the days leading up to the killings, the psychiatrist told the jury, White cast aside his normal habits and grew slovenly, quit working, shunned his wife, grew a stubble beard and rather than eat his healthful diet, indulged in Twinkies and Coke -- all symptoms, Blinder testified, of depression.

So was there a Twinkie Defense? No. But there was a Twinkie Diagnosis.

Reporters being reporters, though, that was lost in the shuffle.

Actually, the other variable to control for is population. The population in the US in 1980 was about 226 million, compared to today's 307 million.

So, in movies, the apples-to-apples comparison would be admissions(tickets) per capita. In records, units sold per capita.

Only one movie has ever sold more tickets than the number of people living in the US at the time, and that's Gone With the Wind. At today's ticket prices, a movie would need to have a US domestic gross of over $2.2 billion (using boxofficemojo.com's 2009 ticket average for 2009 of $7.18 -- which I think is low, but hey -- times the 306.8 million people in the US today).

I've never punched out the numbers for records. Per capita, they're much less popular than movies.

It was almost certainly said by neither individual, and is a "mythquotation."

If you have the paragraph, or a lengthier quote of the phrase in context, I'd be happy to be shown wrong.

That's it, that's the grand strategy.

We invaded Iraq so W. could tell Bush41, "Hello, Dad? Remember that country you never conquered? Guess what I did, Dad!" (Imagine this in the voice of the song, "Hello, Dad? I'm In JAIL!" -- which has been W.'s theme his whole life.)

For Exhibit A, I remind everyone of Thanksgiving 2003. That was when W. flew to Iraq in secret to have Thanksgiving dinner with the troops. The not so widely covered aspect to the trip, though: Laura, the twins, Poppy, and Barbara were all left in Crawford, wondering where W. had gone AWOL to this time. Not even Bush41 was allowed to know, "for national security." The ludicrousness of a former president being a putative "security risk" should be plain. The whole thing was an exercise in shoving it all in Poppy's face. And it was eminently possible for W. to saunter in on Friday, to say, "Oh, Dad... Are you still here? Sorry I couldn't make it, Dad. I was in IRAQ!"

Thus, as far W. is concerned, of course the Mission Was Accomplished. And always will be.

*^*^*

In re W.'s ostensible religiosity: You're right -- the evangelicals did believe. That's mostly because they were so earnestly hungry, and wanted to believe so badly. But it's already been covered in memoirs by David Kuo that in the Bush White House, they were regarded as "nuts."

Like George Burns said, The secret of acting is sincerity. If you can fake that, you've got it made.

W.'s bamboozlement of the evangelicals is perhaps one of the most tragic aspects of his political life. They've believed in him so much more than he's believed in them.

Just so long as it isn't Nino Scalia... Who apparently has never been to a junior high school yard in the last fifty years, and thus thinks children need to be protected from the profanities of adults, and not the other way around. (per the recently decided FCC v Fox) I usually call this "parental amnesia syndrome" -- "I may have sworn like a sailor, and I may have done drugs at age 12, and I may have gotten laid at 14... but my little Johnny would never do a thing like that!"

I suppose in Scalia's case it must be "grandfatherly amnesia syndrome." Then again, this is a man who believes enforcing the original intent of the Founders is best served by ignoring the Ninth Amendment. And isn't it amazing how every time he hauls out the Original Intent Ouija Board, the Founders never disagree with him?

Whatever the DNC tells him will get the most votes for Democrats. As long as the check clears, he doesn't mind being a cartoon.

It means maryalice is so far to the right she doesn't recognize Mr. Obama is the definition of a centrist in this country. Thus, compared to her, the center is "far-left."

It's something like how someone on the North Pole can call everyone "Southern."

And that's even before we get to his gay husband, Dan Savage.

Which explains why "smart business people" are so few and far between.

I'm not disagreeing with you on what businesses should do in principle. I'm just saying that most businesses don't give a damn, even when it costs them money/customers/what-have-you. Which is why 50% of businesses fail after five years, which is just the same as flipping a coin.

"(Medicine) wants to be a customer/seller type business (heck, look at any hospital's P.R., they sell sell sell certain clinics or services, whether for profit or to inspire donations) but it is woefully dysfunctional as to doing that."

Ah. So despite PR efforts, they behave like nearly every other business in America. Fancy that. "Dog Bites Man," reads the headline.

Or, as I've said before, there's a reason Dilbert is set in the private sector.