The ultra-right wing Heritage Foundation made the suggestion yesterday, and it turned out President Obama liked it. George what-me-Worry Bush will co-chair the Haiti relief committee! The New Orleans Katrina aid travesty qualified him to do what? Play guitar and go fishing? Instead of slapping the pathological miscreant in a set of cuffs, our commander in chief will no doubt soon be saying "Good Job Dubya" --if the Heritage Foundation dictates.
Tag: George W. Bush
Did you elect Obama to finish the job?
President Obama wants to "finish the job?" What job would that be? Are we talking about a job which Bush started? Because I am pretty sure Mr. Obama was elected NOT to do that. "Finish" Afghanistan? Where was Obama when the rest of us were learning what it meant to try to finish off Vietnam? 11926
Change that Works as viewed by the very dim light of a thousand points
I read there were demonstrators at Texas A & M to greet President Obama as he arrived to participate in a community service symposium honoring former president George Herbert Walker Bush. I'll admit I was surprised they were run of the mill teabaggers. Where was the indignant left, protesting LOUDLY at the dubious priority of this whistle stop, while health care reform withers in DC? So far, SNL survived a fact-check on a satiric Obama checklist, except: Kissing up to the Bushes. If the Saudi King shows up for some fealty, I just know Obama is going to hold his hand. 10240
I want Obama to win a JUSTICE prize
Then our Nobel Laureate can restore Habeas Corpus, stop rendition and torture, repeal the Patriot Act, confess to illegal wars, war crimes and crimes against humanity, end all occupations, smash the weapons trade, pursue antitrust action against banks and multinational monopolies, abolish the Fed, IMF, World Bank and WTO, renounce globalism and free trade neoliberalism, own up to climate change and third world plunder, initiate restitution for US misrule, and #prosecutebushnowgoddamnit!
One man dared
I'd like to revisit photographs of George Bush. On everyone pictured standing next to him, I'll stamp "NOT AL-ZAIDI," meaning, NOT A HERO. The tag would apply to all of us of course, but in particular, to those who had a chance -but didn't- to confront the naked emperor. The single bravest man in the world, Muntadhar al Zaidi, was released from prison this week, to recount the torture he endured for his act. Is your courage bolstered or tempered by his example? We are inspired by the unbroken Al Zaidi, but his keepers, our governments, know how to repress our audacity. We're let to celebrate Al Zaidi as a hero, but he has also been made an example, for rule by state terrorism. 9138
Charges dropped against Phillip Garrido, Obama wants to look forward not back
The latest of Phillip Garrido's sex crimes occured in 1991, too far in the past to interest President Obama. Rehashing the injustices of 1990-91 would mean looking into American war crimes of the First Gulf War. To Obama's reconciliatory way of thinking, this would open a can of worms which could only lead to redressing subsequent US bombings of civilians, including actions by the recently deposed administration, and now the ongoing state terror against a growing variety of Muslim populations.
Could Bush have bettered Obama?
David Swanson describes for Tomdispatch what a GW Bush third term would have looked like. He paints a horror story continuation of all the policies which drove voters in 2008 to elect anybody but Bush. But did we? ABB Obama is proving to be quite the reliable steward of Bush's policies of war, torture, rendition, and mercenaries, minus the public outcry. It's change we can't quite put our finger on.
The antiwar message directed to whom?
Cindy Sheehan may be glamping again. This time it's Martha's Vineyard, where Sheehan is prepared to lay siege to another presidential vacation. Which certainly highlights what's become undeniable about Barack Obama. He heralds no change. And I'm not prepared to hope the effectiveness of petitioning our leaders has changed either. Bush answered to no one, Obama won't even dance with them who thought they elected him. The antiwar message has no one's ear. Let's put it to the American people. 8507
Was Aught Eight an inauspicious omen?
I remember the discussion in the nineties of what to name the coming decade. In a previous century yrs 1900-09 were aught years, but "the aughts" is an archaic term. Aught means: no thing; not anything: nil, nothing, null, zero, nix, zilch. In bookkeeping terms, as with data processing, an aught with its diagonal slash helps the accountant differentiate a zero from an O. 8352
Problem solving by U.S. assassination
Word is out, confirming Seymore Hersh's alarming report of last year, about the Cheney/Bush special forces tasked with assassinating terrorism suspects. Where others do it, such paramilitary raids are called "death squads." While their existence is being admitted, Congress is upset they weren't told sooner about the extra-judicial homicide plans. But didn't President Bush put us all on notice in his 2006 State of the Union Address? What did you think he was snickering about when he said: "All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. And many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." 8221
UN, US, and EU all split on how best to continue to plague Somalia?
UN head against new Somalia force 'In December, Mr Ban had said few countries were willing to send peacekeeping troops to Somalia, as there was no peace to keep.' That would be the United States' fault since they tore the country apart along with the help of Ethiopia's dictator. 7524
Canada welcomes Bush, bars Galloway
Canada refused to bar entry to Ex-president George Bush, then declined calls for his arrest for war crimes and prevented attempts by others to make citizen's arrests. But in the same breath, Canada denied entry to a prominent antiwar voice, British MP George Galloway, because HE was infandous. Clearly they have no standard at all. 7145
-and you smell like one too!
Stop bailing the banks out and nationalize them, Robbing Hood
$173 billions of taxpayer money given to just one financial company, AIG! Thanks, Obama, you're really doing great here. What has the American public gotten for this travesty of economics, as Obama and Bush (the Democrats and the Republicans) have taken from the poor and given to the rich? Why, they have gotten absolutely nothing. Who has gotten anything besides AIG? 6830
The Dubya archetype as maladroit foil
Some might argue that it began before George Dubya. Apparently the US public's distrust of politics is placated by believing its fate is in the hands of someone they could feel comfortable having a beer with. I'd say it began in earnest with the cardboard figurehead Ronald Reagan, and continued through the wimp and slick Wimpy. The perceived acuity of the US president has since been diminished ad absurdum to an incoherent, uneducated, illiterate inebriate. The ascension of Barack Obama marks a change meant to refresh voter confidence, but clearly our government's winning motif is taking a not so distant back seat. Americans need someone with whom to feel superior, if not in the highest office, at least among his foils. 6688
Obama presidential address to Congress addressed to dueling teleprompters
Have you noticed that Obama rarely looks forward when he speaks, not even by a fraction of 45 degrees? I think this censored camera shot which gives viewers President Obama’s point of view, the perspective exposes his complete reliance on the teleprompters. That’s why Obama turns his head completely from side to side, never facing forward, never appearing to address the majority of the audience who must obviously be in front of him. Anyway, it’s just an observation, but the mannerism has spoiled me for watching Obama make speeches, and I particularly question his use of the teleprompters for his press conference appearance.
Activism heroics and roadkill
This is by no means a complete list of contemporary populist heros, but I'd like to start with comedian Stephen Colbert, who roasted President Bush at a Washington Correspondents Association Dinner, like a court jester gone rabid. With celebrated White House correspondent Helen Thomas's help, Colbert belittled the decider-in-chief to his face right in front of his friends. 6501
Send off worthy of a respected dignitary
I've been assured that those boots probably looked smashing standing in front of the bathroom mirror.
Who is the economy calling stupid?
Okay, I've had enough of our readiness to believe, about the economy, that nobody knows what's going on. Nobody will tell you what's going on, is what's going on. 6081
Is Charles Manson getting out in 2012? Absolutely!
Today on the public radio, I heard PRI's Matthew Bell pose a question for the program The World. "Is President Bush underrated?" His verdict: "Absolutely!" Well the answer wasn't Bell's, actually. But the attribution fell outside the sound bite: Bell went on to say: "At least that's what President Bush believes." 6080
Did Bush cause the financial crisis?
Did Bush cause the financial crisis? is the question that the BBC's North America Business Correspondent in New York, Greg Wood briefly explores and his conclusion is not surprising. 5977
Barack Obama sneaking in real close
LOOK AT THAT CHEEKY RASCAL! He's wearing Bush's tie, and Bush's lapel pin, and he's standing right in there between the blue-bloods; like he wants to be Bush 44 and not somebody who even knows those red-tied crackers! I've still got my fingers crossed that this is a ruse. The minute the inauguration's over, Obama will put his arms over the shoulders of both the Bushes and lead them straight up a scaffold.
Throwing a shoe at Bush was not enough- Dubya and Cheney need to be tortured for National Security reasons
It seems to me that the wrong guy is being tortured right now, pre-Christmas. I'm talking about the Iraqi reporter who threw the shoe at America's smirking Clown President, George W. Bush. Why is he being tortured and not the clown named Dubya? 5826
US media takes shoe, makes lemonade
Muntadha al-Zaidi's shoe may have missed George Bush, but it left a figurative black eye on the warrior emperor, and, a literal shiner on White House spokes- gidget Dana Perino. She was hit by a microphone as secret service agents rushed to protect the president. Which could not have worked out better for the US media. 5771
Bush Iraq press conference hits the fan
"THIS IS A FAREWELL KISS, YOU DOG!" --yelled al-Baghdadia news journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, as he hurled his first shoe. Finally someone brave enough to have at our obscene Reprobate-in-Chief! What does this say about reporters, officials and celebrities who have access to President Bush but take their shoes off only to show fealty? Homeland Security has all of us removing our shoes, but it took an Iraqi to know what to do with them. If the world needed a sign of hope, that someone would at last stand up to America's miserable criminality, new-detainee al-Zaidi is the one. 5748