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Wednesday, December 17, 2008

When it isn't funny anymore
Posted by Jill | 6:24 AM
There's been a lot of yukking over the last eight years over the clownish ineptitude of the man who has occupied the White House during that time. From the right and the press, it's been a kind of jolly-good-fellow bonhomie that one has for the guy in the frat house who may get shit-faced drunk every night, but he's so much fun no one cares that he's an alcoholic. From the left it's been the kind of appalled amusement, tinged with a sense of superiority, that one has when presented with someone who's clearly an intellectual lightweight out of his league.

But despite the many parody YouTube videos people are making spoofing the image of George W. Bush ducking footwear projectiles:

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...I'm not laughing.

It isn't that I think George W. Bush deserves to be treated with respect. The only surprise is really why it took so long for someone to make a gesture like this; and why it didn't come from someone in our own press corps -- the very same press corps that has been so enthralled with him for so long. On Monday, reporting on the incident on Countdown, Howard Fineman had the shell-shocked look of someone who had escaped an abusive marriage and was only now realizing just how bad it had been.

It isn't that I think the Iraqis ought to be grateful to us for wrecking their country and that they should be groveling at Bush's feet. I'm frankly surprised that this was as violent as it got for him over there.

I think it's that watching this mean, small man having to duck shoes being thrown at him, as if he were (as Olbermann noted) the Blues Brothers playing "Gimme Some Lovin'" at Bob's Country Bunker was an encapsulated vision of just how diminished America is as a force in the world, just how extensively this president has destroyed whatever moral authority we may have had. After all, we allowed this man to be president for eight years. Those shoes were not just thrown at him, they were thrown at all of us.

This year we dodged a bullet in that there weren't enough people who think being smart is a bad thing and that willful ignorance and bigotry are admirable traits to give us four more years of Bush in the form of John McCain and the person who would have been the public face of his administration, Sarah Palin. But as we've now seen, the forces of meanness and stupidity have not gone away. Palin is already the frontrunner for 2012, and Mike Huckabee is the same sour soup in a slightly more affable package. Already the media, smelling blood, are circling Barack Obama like hungry sharks, gleeful for the opportunity to try to bring down another Democratic president.

The image of a man who never should have been president finally getting what he deserves from an angry Iraqi journalist should haunt us for decades to come, to remind us what we have in store if we ever allow someone like this to become president again.

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Anonymous Anonymous said...
"Already the media, smelling blood, are circling Barack Obama like hungry sharks, gleeful for the opportunity to try to bring down another Democratic president." ... Are you kidding me? The media is known for being liberal. Didn’t you hear all the reasons why McCain “shouldn’t” be president: he is like Bush, he is old, he might die, Sarah is his Vice-president, etc. They tried to find every reason to help him NOT get elected. You never heard that crap about Obama. Anyway, it really doesn’t matter. A democrat is in and they are known for not fulfilling what they say they are going to do (i.e. see the “we will get us out of Iraq campaign they ran in 2006”….yea didn’t happen). Obama doesn’t have enough money to fulfill all the promises he gave to the “middle class”. We are just going to fall farther and farther into debt as the government spends our money. As if the government knows how to spend money better than the person who worked for it… And don’t complain that Bush was in for 8 years…..did you see the crap he ran against in 2000 (Gore) and 2004 (Kerry), it really isn’t a shocker.
12/17/08, 1:29 PM  
Blogger Bob said...
The image sickened me. For any other President, the action would have seemed almost blasphemous, & we would've felt great indignation, because the President is a symbol as well as a person. The symbol is supposed to have a continuity, a lineage. The quality of presidents varies, but the office was occupied by Washington & Lincoln, patricians & common men. Barack Obama knows the symbolic role he must fill. Don't bother with Frank, he doesn't understand this stuff, or Bush's part in it (or the insult to American ideals that is Sarah Palin). He is himself a shoe-thrower.
12/17/08, 6:04 PM  
Blogger Melina said...
lets just call Bush a blip...er...burp in the sparkling lineage of symbolism of the American presidency.
The shoe thrower has been beaten to a pulp; as reported, his screams could be heard from an adjoining room during the end of the the conference...so I'm sure that he will be more than punished in that thriving baby democratic society that Bush thinks he created in his own image.

I thought Olbermann was hilarious on this and I'm all for the shoe thrower in that he is a brave protester who will probably end up giving his life for this display of disgust. I hardly think that Frank ranks up there with him.

Frank is apparently a neocon who drank the kool-aid...and who now is preparing for a long slumber, preparing for some distant spring when the lazy voters have forgotten the criminal acts of this administration. he is just letting out his last gasps before slipping off to the slumber of the "just."

as for the image...well, when America elects an idiot criminal 2 times I hardly think that we can expect to maintain respect in the world...we tore that country apart and now we bought it. Ignore the muffled screams in the back room...


McCain wasn't elected because a landslide majority of the people could see that he lacked the plan and vision for this country. He also lied boldly numerous times, just as Bush's reelection was based on lies, fear, and stolen votes.
A big enough majority of Americans decided to change course, and if you disagree, well...too bad! The vote wasn't close enough to be stolen, and thats all there is to it.

and now you're gonna worry about the country slipping into debt?? Ive got news for you...its too fucking late! We're in debt and its not like anyone wouldn't have to do what Obama is going to have to do; McCain, Palin, Bush, Kerry, Gore, or even President Elect Barack Hussein Obama.
12/17/08, 8:47 PM  
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