Given 2008's inevitably ramped-up analysis of the Bush Legacy by the very serious traditional media, there's one aspect of the president which, staggeringly though not surprisingly, won't be covered. In fact, it's never been covered to my knowledge. The traditional media has never really challenged the president on his grotesquely inappropriate reactions to serious issues -- especially Iraq.
His uncomfortably ridiculous smirks and smiles illustrate his inadequacies as a leader: his fugacious attitude; his vacant stature; and, most strikingly, his apparent inability to grasp the reality of his decisions. It's all right there on the screen -- underlined by those tiny baby teeth.
So as a reminder to the traditional media, I'd like to present the Most Inappropriate Bush War Smirk of 2007. But first, some runners up.
The date: October 17, 2007
The place: The White House Press Briefing Room
The hilarious quote: "But this -- we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding [grinning] World War III [end grinning], it seems like you [begin giggling] ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge [end giggling] necessary to make a nuclear weapon."
The date: April 3, 2007
The place: The White House Rose Garden
The hilarious quote: "That's precisely why I sent more troops into Baghdad."
The date: January 14, 2007
The place: 60 Minutes
The hilarious quote: "There's not enough troops on the ground right now to provide security for Iraq and that's why I made the decision I made."
And now, for the historical record, The Most Inappropriate Bush War Smirk of 2007:
The date: January 16, 2007
The place: PBS's NewsHour With Jim Lehrer
The hilarious quote: "If I didn't believe we could keep the egg from fully cracking, I wouldn't ask 21,000 kids -- additional kids to go into Iraq to reinforce those troops that are there."
Soon after this smirk, the president, as part of his euphemistically nicknamed New Way Forward, ordered an additional 21,000 soldiers into Iraq with the goal of providing military cover for a political solution to the civil war there.
During the intervening 11 months between the above smirk and today, 6,796 American soldiers were either killed or wounded under the president's hap-hap-happy command.
The political solution for which these soldiers gave their lives... never happened.
I don't know who he thinks he is or what he thinks he's grinning about, but for the Commander in Chief of the United States armed forces to smile and giggle while discussing warfare of any form or magnitude is an insult -- not just to the soldiers who followed his orders into battle, but also to basic decency and human morality. From his zany "those WMDs have to be around here somewhere" sketch to his shit-eating grin whilst comparing warfare to wacky-yet-delicious breakfast foods, this extends far beyond the necessary objective distance of a military leader and into the realms of madness.
This is the Bush Legacy, Traditional Media. Please consider this in the coming months. President Bush injected a psycho bomb into the Middle East without any real grasp of the consequences and, nearly five years into the conflict, is so affectless about these consequences as to smirk and laugh at it all.
Or maybe there's an hilarious joke in there somewhere and we're all just dumb about it.
Of course, in the President's case, none of that applies, and we are instead witnessing the collision of a man's obvious lies and shallowness with the interior of his skull.
*BUSH KNOWS* he is inadequate. Why do you think he is so uncomfortable in the job, when he isn't busy posturing...?
-Benjamin Franklin
The really scary thing is that the Republican party is offering presidential candidates that are probably worse than he is.
This presidential election is probably the last opportunity to save the Republic short of revolution. Unfortunately many of the voters of this country do not seem to grasp the urgency of this situation. If the evangelical right is able to elect another facist president the great democratic expirement is dead.
God save the Republic.
in that first picture
he probably is
i wouldnt put it past him
To me, one of the most telling instances of the "FU, Amurrica" occurred early on, when Pres and VPs' mikes were inadvertently "hot" during an appearance...while their smiling / waving selves postured for the throng, they were unaware that the mikes were on and the audio told a much different story than the one one we could visually perceive, one of the contempt they had for us all.
Maybe the mainstream media fears that calling a spade a spade will actually make them (and, by ostensibly logical extension, all of the rest of U.S.) look petty. After all, you don't take advantage of someone with a handicap, do you?
The conundrum here, dear friends, is that North America has a history of propagating a proud and noble image of itself.
Aw, heck -- positive spin be danged! I say, WTF?!?
History will someday provide the scrutiny of George W. Bush that was so sorely lacking these past eight years and indict not only him and Cheney but the American media and public for not calling him to task on his inappropriate, unConstitutional and possibly sociopathic behavior.
Evil in a grinning face.
That evil smile that comes when a person KNOWS they are lying and getting away with it. They can't quite maintain their "poker face". Bad for card games and the well being of millions of people.
Tough tooties babies!!!
were facing a Cold War type nuclear stand-off?
Better yet, a terrorist has just gotten one of
Pakistan's allegedly well guarded nukes. The
President does not know where it is, but he
knows he has to do something to stop it being
used. What do you think he would do? How long
do you think we have until this is a real
situation, given the current mele' in Pakistan?
His grammar/pronunciation issues usually occur when he has to pretend to care about poor or middle class people(school children, disaster victims). His diction is always clear when he talks about taking away or cutting entitlements(Medicare, Social Security, or veterans' benefits).