The below piece was good reporting from the Guardian, but this one just stinks with the Grauniad’s wonted bias:
The island of Galveston, just off the Gulf coast of Texas, does not have a happy place in American history. In 1900 it was the site of the worst natural disaster in US history, a hurricane that killed more than 6,000 people.
Half a century later two ships laden with fertiliser exploded, incinerating 600 locals and levelling much of Texas City on the other side of Galveston bay.
Now Galveston is in the process of becoming famous once more. No one has been killed this time, but the impact on the rest of the country could be far greater.
Okay, so having established doom, gloom, thousands of casualties and exploded fertilizer, want to guess what the subject of the article is?
That’s right! A Bush policy!
It began in 1981, when the old cotton port and two neighbouring counties decided to opt out of the federal pension scheme, known as social security, and set up individual investment accounts for county employees.
The decision was hardly noticed outside southern Texas at the time, but it has now taken on national significance. President George Bush has committed his second term in office to doing across America what Galveston county did 24 years ago.
It reads like agitprop written by a special needs child. Begin with a non sequitur (two, in fact) that will give a bad overall impression, then use dismissive language for the policy you do not like, and that’s all you gotta do.
Bush == ’sploded manure and dead people!
It practically writes itself, really.