Bush's Banned Interview: An Insight Into Insanity
While surfing the net on 'Stumble', I came across an interview with President Bush on Irish television that caused a bit of a storm in 2004. The interview conducted by the tenacious Carol Coleman of Radio Television Ireland was not aired on American television, and Bush's press officers apparently complained vociferously about the rigorous questioning.
The video shows Bush at the absolute peak of his arrogance -- convinced of his own rhetoric about Iraq, flooded with confidence from international subservience to American power, and high off a crushing military victory that reinforced his childish fantasies of American power and preeminence.
The problem was, Coleman was having none of it, and what transpired was a unique insight into the warped brain of the least respected and most hated president in the history of the United States.
"Mr. President," asked the stone faced Coleman. "You're going to arrive in Ireland in about 24 hours' time, and no doubt you will be welcomed by our political leaders. Unfortunately, the majority of our public do not welcome your visit because they're angry over Iraq, they're angry over Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?"
Other than stutter, the president managed only to answer in vacant homilies about 'the great values of our country.'
"We are a compassionate country," he asserted. "We're a strong country, and we'll defend ourselves -- but we help people."
And that was about the depth of his explanation for the invasion of Iraq. Supremely satisfied with his own answers, Bush expected Coleman to be bowled over with his 'good ol' plain speakin' English', but Coleman, not infected with the American media's insatiable appetite to service power, had other ideas.
She continued to grill Bush about the rising violence in Iraq, increased world wide threat of terrorism, and failure to find the weapons of mass destruction. Flustered and unaccustomed to serious challenges to his power, Bush displayed flashes of anger, and an increased reliance on catch phrases to argue the unarguable.
"These people are willing to kill innocent people," he answered testily in response to questioning about the Iraqi death toll. "They're willing to slaughter innocent people to stop the advance of freedom. And so the free world has to make a choice: Do we cower in the face of terror, or do we lead in the face of terror?"
Coleman cut through the simplistic slogans about evil doers and freedom loving Americans and continued to ask Bush serious questions about the illegal war he had just launched. It fast became evident that this was a man who really had no idea what he was doing -- someone so removed from reality that he failed to even understand what he was being asked.
The world in Bush's mind exists of good and evil, right and wrong, and America and everyone else. He could not fathom anyone disagreeing with his nobility, and simply refused to acknowledge that a different account of reality existed.
The interview took place almost four years ago, but is the perfect illustration of a man elected purely on name recognition, dirty money, and no discernible talent. Four years ago, there were still enough Americans who believed Bush's infantile bluster was charming and direct. Now, even Republicans do not waste their time with him, quietly wishing he would disappear and stop embarrassing their party.
The interview with Coleman should go down on record as definitive proof of Bush's utter incompetence, a priceless picture of a madman who had no business occupying the highest office of the land.
Watch below:
Ben Cohen is the editor of www.thedailybanter.com and a contributing writer to www.espn.com and Boxing Monthly Magazine. He can be reached at thedailybanter@gmail.com
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Please HuffPost, Please.
Forever keep this video on your site.
I will use it the rest of my life to beat Republicans and American reports over the head.
I SO "DITTO" THAT!!! (LANDMINE) V.
The video has vanished from Youtube. This seems to happen frequently to videos that are embarrassing to the right. Do you know why and can you tell us?
They are there, just query on "Carol Coleman Bush" and 3 pop up. I am having trouble with the audio, so in case you are too, below is a link to a transcript of Harvard's finest dealing with a real journalist for once in his sorry life.
http://iri
"Let me finish. Let me finish..." - how about you finish TODAY?
Why does it take an Irish journalist to do the work of the American media? I applaud you, Ms. Coleman! Hopefully your American counterparts will grow some nerve and start asking the important questions.
There have been many voices outside the mainstream in this country who were tough on Bush, but they were cowed and shouted down by the slime who backed this man.
## Recessional*: the Rotting Legacy of 40-43 to 44 ##
1. Better-defined imperial limits: in distance, treasury, projection of power
2. Pox Americana harassed at every frontier supply line.
3. Richer rich, poorer poor, dying middle.
4. Tyrannical social control erasing living memory of a democratic republic.
Those wretched ephemeral babblers lusting after the purple in '08 notwithstanding, a slide into the abyss can only be slowed not reversed.
Meanwhile xian dominionism and GOProto-fascism pump their ideological excrement into empty heads obsessed with their own folly-driven gasoline costs. (The new KYSS -- Kill your SUV, stupid.)
I applaud Little Bush our postmodern Caligula. The Bushite regime's catalysis of imperial rot is not necessarily a bad thing.
The ancient Romans knew all about us. "Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make demented."
bipolar2
© 2008
* read Rudyard Kipling's faux-biblical anxieties of 1897, Victoria’s 60th year as empress. http://www
I'm curious, and somewhat demoralized. If the MSN is in control of what we hear then doesn't it follow that, outside the whining of individuals, our collective and legitimate complaints will NEVER be heard?
How does one turn THAT problem around? I have an idea, but it won't win any popularity contest.
I'm with you LITU, that and lobbyist/finance reform are top of the list.
So what's your idea?
I refer you to the Declaration of Independence, and thank you.
I have one word to say about this article. Liberalism.
Liberalism
Wow. I'm sincerely impressed. You were rational and gentle but firm. I wish I could be more like you when dealing with "them". Unfortunately, I am frustrated by "them" and I blame them for the situation we are in today. I will strive to be more like you.
As the article and video clip yet again show, Bush's problem is a lack of words to explain himself, too. You two might have something in common.
Yeah, liberalism. Freedom of the press. Fourth Estate. Speaking truth to power.
Stiffled by Conservatism and Corporate Media.
I have read your posts. I can understand your contempt.
Are you kidding me?!?! Do you even know the definition of Liberalism? When the president talks about freedom and the rights of individuals he is describing Liberalism. These are the very ideas that he pretends to be defending in this horrible war.
Turn in your voter registration card and go back to watching American Idol.
"It is as useless to argue with those who have renounced the use of reason as to administer medication to the dead." Thomas Jefferson.
He can't allow the additional questions because he probably can't answer them, so he insists on dominating with his rehearsed schtick. A boor is the least of what he is.
He is programmed
ZOMG. I am so waiting for someone to come forward with indisputable evidence that he was wired during that debate!
IIRC, a scientist with a background in analyzing photographs of Mars and shadows in particular said that the bump was definitely not poor tailoring as Bush claimed, but was the profile of a t-shaped mechanism.
Exactly who was it who gave Junior permission, or a mandate, to "change the world?" As far as I recall he was elected (if you buy into the fantasy that he was actually elected, and not installed after the Republican goats engineered vote-fixing in Florida and Ohio) to be the president of the United States, and what has that to do with messing with the governments of other countries, sending our military to destroy a nation that was doing us no harm?
Whether of not George Bush is actually insane is not something I'm qualified to judge, but I recognize arrogance and stupidity when I see it, and Dubya is the personification of The Ugly American, full of himself, convinced of his own superiority, and certain in his tiny little mind that some miracle will occur and "HISTORY" will come to his rescue and proclaim him a great leader. He has not a clue of the difference between honor and corruption!
Arrogance is a kind of insanity, Reflections. It posits a self that transcends reality and all limts and then proceeds to act as if that self is a real being with real powers in the world. Bush's self--so serence and without doubt-- has posited a world that needs him. It needs his goodness, his strength, his wisdom. It needs his purity of intention and anyone who resists that need is out of touch with reality.
Everybody's out of step but Georgie. Little Georgie is out to right the wrongs his father did along with the wrongs all evildoers have done. He is St. George slaying the dragon. Of course, to us he is Don Quixote without the redeeming features going after windmills and killing real people in the process.
Madness of a kind, yes. But we need to end that madness and soon before it has led us into a nuclear (new-clee-ar, not nuke you lar) confrontation.
To me, GWB is all about "ghost stories" and childrens' books.
Look at the words he uses to sell his programs: "Evil Doers", "Axis of Evil" and "Weapons of Mass Destructio
They belong more appropriately in a game of Dungeons & Dragons.
Well, ALL of those wondeful words are ALIVE AND WELL in the USA.
The American voters gave the world G.W. Bush and our corporate-
No doubt that the 70 percent of German citizens who would vote for Barack Obama may know more about what's good for America and the world than we do. The foreign press is much better at covering this election than pundits on US cable stations.
John McCain is stumbling through the country telling half-truths and laughing at our ignorance. Yet, the media fails to uncover the misleading statements. It could be deja vu all over again if voters do not examine the real choices we have in 2008. I suggest we tune into the BBC news.
How about Al Jazeera English? It's pretty good, if you can find it.
azcamp
You hit the nail on the head!!!
Azcamp: Oh,no, not the BBC please. BBC is also the corporate mouthpiece of America. IIt ignores what it does not please the British government, and even lies in support of U.S. If you are really interested in NEWS, watch CCTV9 Egnlish(China), sometimes DW (Germany), Press TV (Iran), and sometimes also Aljazeera (Dubai).
I have never seen the BBC lie for America...
azcamp, you are certainly on the mark here. If we let the second George Bush, one John McCain, govern this country, we deserve to live with that bad choice. I am convinced that GWB is a madman. The man thinks that God approves of him causing so many innocent lives to be lost. Pelosi and congress, what are you waiting for? You have the power...us
FYI...GWB IS the second Bush....MC
Deutsch World News Journal on link TV, 10 PM week nights ( in the AM as well) in 1/2 hour you can find out more about what is happening in the world, than in 24,. on our dedicated "news" channels!
( They don't do blondes!) NO OPINIONS!
Post WWII /Hitler, the Germans have set up at least 4 PUBLIC news stations, paid for out the peoples taxes, ( non of this, NPR,fund raising baloney which still SKEWS the news to those who HAVE MORE TO GIVE! ANd now is joined by Cargill, ArcherDaniel Midlands etc, bring Franken foods to ALL))
In Germany, the street sweeper's, taxes and the VW CEO's taxes maintain those stations.
Mosaic News, ( middle eastern stations, & International Dateline from Australia. also carried on Link TV. Link is provided in the middle price range Direct TV & Dish TV. programming.
His remarkably un-well-spoken and kind of small town trailer trash delivery makes you wonder how he ever emerged this way from a very rich, well-educated, Eastern, old money, Brahman family. He has almost worked his whole life at becoming obsolete and stupid sounding. Maybe it's a self-hatred, disguised as self-love. Or perhaps he has some kind of obscure degenerative disease.
I don't find the interview at all shocking because it's what we're been seeing now for 7 years. It's only shocking that he was elected in the first place. The dumbing down of America has finally hit one out of the ball park. The Peter Principle has reared its ugly head and appeared in the highest office of the land. It's shocking that the electoral process has no Peter Principle Fire Wall. There needs to be some kind of competence exam or something!
Maybe its the low intellect, insecurity,lack of self esteem and shame that he got a free ride though Yale,though various business failures and finally the grand ride though the Oval Office,while being coddled, praised , and have people tell how to think and what to day. Early in his first term pychiatrists
collectively appraised his IQ at 98. He's demonstrated it iss much lower!
Complain, point fingers, condemn all will those in the Whitehouse for the past 8 years...it remains a fact that it was a MAJORITY of voters who re-elected them! Americans are the slime, the scum, the culprits, our leaders are just our reflections. Look around you, 4 years ago over 50% of all those you see supported George Bush, Inc.
25% of registered voters voted for George Bush, 24% voted for Kerry and the remaining 51% didn't vote at all. Approximately 110 million registered voters abstained.
"Look around you, 4 years ago over 50% of all those you see supported George Bush, Inc."
Here in Louisiana and the rest of the deep south, that figure among whites stands at over 90% to this day. People here STILL think of Bush as a great President. They live in an imaginary world. One of 'good guys' and 'bad guys', infidels and those believing in the one true God, closely resembling that of a 1950s western. They live in George Bush's world. They are not about to leave that world, no matter who the next President is. When they've lost their jobs, homes, health, children's lives in wars profiting the Bush cabal, they will still cling to their comic book fantasy world.
This is why I am contemplating leaving this country. I see very little hope that the masses of the American people will ever advance beyond the mindset of fearful, small-minded, selfish peasants.
Johnagain says: ''Here in Louisiana and the rest of the deep south, that figure among whites stands at over 90% to this day. People here STILL think of Bush as a great President.
I live in Louisiana and I don't know one person who thinks of GWB as a great president. Maybe you and I travel in different circles. I know I didn't vote for him..those who did are repenting in leisure. It's called buyers' remorse. We're all suffering under this arrogant, self serving madman, but at least I don't have to look in the mirror and question my sanity. I can see how other countries think we're all stupid. Hope we don't make the same mistake in 08.
Having seen the effect of their abstinance, maybe some of those 110 million voters (if not all -- we can dream!) will feel acutely the need to vote in 2008, and against McCain. Like The Who song says "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss!" President Select George W. Bush et al., don't forget his road crew --they are most important and conveniently invisible-- have been masters of deception. Helps to have a daddy who once ran the CIA; I guess you learn a thing or two around ye olde dinner table. Three cheers to Ms. Coleman for her tenacity and clearsightedness! Pity so much of our domestic press has been eviscerated and lacks her ability and integrity.
That's why we need to educate the younger generations to have an opinion outside of "who is Britney Spears dating now" and "what's the coolest SUV I can get my parents to buy me?" - www.funwit
I have been saying it for quite a while now.
republican = insanity!
Just don't carry that sign into a McCain event. You will be arrested!
lol
"Mr. President, she asked the stone faced Coleman" Need a little help here, editor.
Actually, I don't think his performance is that bad here. Most people would not see it as definitive proof of his incompentence.
It's not so much his performance as his "talking points" and his stories. He can't stop the flow of his words because it's rehearsed; he wouldn't allow an "interruption" because that would have forced him to think of a spontaneous answer of which he was, and still is, incapable of doing.
McCain=Bush
Bubba! Help me remove these peepull? We don't need no more librareeuns 'round here!
Is there any doubt that when you watch this interview, of the two people on screen, the woman conducting the interview would be a better president? I mean, that's sad, when a sitting president is so piss poor that a reporter seems infinitely more qualified for the job.
It wouldn't matter to me if a salamander were running this time around, America has to vote the Republicans out of office to send a clear message: When you spit in the face of the U.S. Constitution and ignore the electorate, you pay at the polls. They have to be punished in November and given a lesson they'll never forget... until the next time they forget... and America forgets. That's kind of what we do
Well said, JoshuaF. We cannot continue to let the Republicans destroy our counrty...
painful to watch
Exactly. Excruciating.
If Nancy Pelosi won't start impeachment hearings < she said she might> SHE SHOULD BE REPLACED AS SPEAKER
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