"I heard that on the NBC Nightly news -- attibuted to that paragon of rhetorical delivery, our current President -- just a few minutes ago, and guffawed. Sounded to me like Bush has hired geoff "half" baikie for the speech-writing team. "

I'm not on a speech writing team.
I have been interested in certain issues and I try to keep up. Though would like to imagine I add something to the debate*.
The brutal truth is that everyone can have access to much of the information and views that guides policy. And really the "cutting edge" is not neccessarily located in some building in DC. Plus leadership is largely about listening to the citizens which you represent.
If you want to get ahead of the news- I suggest that you visit Blogs. And cable is worth getting if for no other reason than CSPAN.

*I would add that there is *something* kind of spooky about this area in general- it has nothing to do specifically with Bush, nor even memes. Though perhaps memes is an interesting starting point of a subject which may evenually lead to more understanding in this area. For example:
http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/MEMIN.HTML
There is lots of stuff about Memes on the net. I can't say I've spent much time studying it- but I think it's at a primitive stage of understanding this phenomena.