Famous Bushisms — "misunderestimate," "is our children learning?," "don't get fooled again," etc. — are smoothly grafted into imagined situations without material damage to flow or fairness.
A particularly vocal critic, Professor Paul Cheshire of the London School of Economics, has written that "the unstoppable damage they do to societal fairness, housing affordability, the economic efficiency of our cities, even the environment, is devastating".
Almost anything in these pages could be cut with no damage to the whole, for "Fairness" is a book of scenes and sketches that, while amusing, don't build to anything much.
It is also damaging America's reputation for fairness.
The marriage was later annulled, but the woman demanded damages for his lack of "fairness and good faith" before their wedding and for his refusal to seek treatment afterward because his condition would then become known to someone else.
Obama got the vote of young people from all walks of life -- from people who want consensus over partisan bickering, equality instead of tribalism, reason rather than fairy tales, and economic fairness instead of damaging capitalism.
In fairness to him, though, most of the damage was done on Thursday when, as one of the afternoon starters, he caught the worst of the conditions.
And even a painful Senate procedural vote on the Paycheck Fairness Act helped call attention to the damage done by the gender-based wage gap and the need to combat pay discrimination in our nation's workplaces.
Steelers linebacker James Harrison was fined $75,000 for being a repeat offender on hits to the head, hits that, while damaging to players, do not aim to undermine the fairness of competition.
And this damaged both America's economy and its sense of fairness, rupturing the nation's social fabric.
