Bush Declares Mandela Dead: This is the Best Conservatives Can Do

"I heard somebody say, Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas," Bush, who has a reputation for verbal faux pas, said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday.

---------------------------

George Bush is what conservatives produce in their lust for power and lack of concern for who wields that power. They deserve him, but we sure don't. He might or might not have produced the most corrupt administration in history, but he and his backers surely have produced the worst and most damaging presidency this country has ever seen.

Bush's own lack of curiosity and ability to see the world in grays combined with his absolute certainty that God intended for him to preside and his willingness to let pure idealogues make decisions have created this.

For conservatives, he has accomplished a tremendous amount, subtracting the abject failure of Iraq. It is quite impressive that these independent operators have had such free reign and success on tax cuts, military issues, social issues, civil rights issues, and federal court appointments. Bush has allowed it, sometimes with his understanding I am sure but more often it seems with simply his abrogation of authority to the idealogues and their great Dick Cheney.

This latest Mandela misstatement simply proves this result of his leadership style. How does he know there are no Mandelas in Iraq? How does he know that Hussein killed them? It seems just as likely that we have prevented one from arising post-Hussein because Bush has tried to force his template on that nation.

Besides, it seems that if there were any Mandela in Iraq -- someone that Bush so fervently seems to want -- he would have thrown the US out of the country. Bush does not even realize the implications of his poor attempt at symbolism. He just seeks to protect himself from his own failures by once again turning to Hussein in the same way the student always knows there's a dog somewhere who ate his homework.

Heroes are produced by victories and elevated by the victors -- George Washington, Gandhi, Mandela. Iraq has no Mandela because that nation not been allowed to be victorious; the yoke of an overewhelming power -- Hussein and his terrible reign of terror, the US and its army of liberation -- has never been removed.

Maybe Bush thinks he is Iraq's Mandela. He might be the conservatives'. He's certainly not our nation's.

Comments

[HotConflict]

Reports of MY Demise were Greatly Exaggerated,
says Nelson Mandela.

Nelson Mandela has been reassuring his supporters that he is not dead. Nelson Mandela, who became South Africa's first Black President, after apartheid, is certainly still alive.

Read the rest and check out my videos or Live radio Show about Islam in America!

http://www.hotconflict.com/blog/2007/09/bush-says-mande.html

[Archie1955]

Well thank you I now understand the metaphor the president was attempting to make however it doesn't correlate with the second articulated reason for the invasion of Iraq, ie: to bring democracy to the masses. Excuse me but if all the Mandellas are gone who was to pick up the pieces in a thoroughly disrupted Iraq?

[ProudPrimate]

The statement by the Resident is bogus like all his other statements. Granted, Mandela is a unique individual.

But (with the exception of his being accused of thinking the actual Mandela was dead) Bush never tells the truth. He doesn't waste words on truth when he can be busy lying.

If Saddam eliminated opposition, it was at the CIA's bidding, just as he was promoted over his predecessor Abd al-Karim Qasim, who was too friendly with Nasser to suit the Fraternity that rules the USA and Britain.

There are plenty of heroic freedom fighters left in Iraq, even now, after Bush pere baited the Shi'ites to rebel, promising aid, then held back, leading to the death of some 100,000, Clinton's sanctions killed a million babies with dysentery, and even now that Bush fils has killed a million more. Plenty of freedom fighters left: the faster we kill them, the more they grow, as Rumsfeld inadvertantly admitted.

Neither Mandela, NOR "Mandelas" are dead. That's just blather, more of the same.

[rwoodsathome]

Let's face it 'progressives' are simpletons. They foist insult after insult on the POTUS and when a commenter takes them to task using context the best they can do is pretend nothing was said.

It is becoming patently obvious that a 'progressive' America would be a very unpleasant place to be. Using one's brain, understanding context, and critical thinking would be out the window.

[ProudPrimate]

Oh, so Limbaugh's ditto-heads are the model of critical thinking? Man -- you could make it in comedy.

There are brain-dead people on both sides of the aisle. It's time we abandon knee-jerk mechanical reactionism and really do our homework.

I, a Progressive, agree with Alex Jones, an old-line Conservative, that it's time to leave the false Left-Right paradigm behind, and unite against the real enemy, which he, with justification, calls the New World Order.

These are the same elements that made a serious attempt to overthrow FDR and install Smedley Butler (happily, Smedley was a patriot and ratted them out to the Congress).

Wilson was a Democrat, an "enlightened Liberal", but he did the will of the bankers, especially Morgan, who himself turns out to be a satrap for old money in Europe. The brave new world he carved out at Versailles was born in the jaws of the predators. The Bank for International Settlements was a criminal gang from the beginning.

These are the same elements that supported BOTH SIDES during World Wars 1 AND 2 -- Standard Oil of New Jersey (Rockefeller) fed tetraethyl lead to Goering's Luftwaffe, without which he couldn't fly, and told Interior Sec'y Harold Ickes that if Standard cut off the US, our war effort would grind to a halt, so STFU. FDR had to play his cards very cleverly to pull off a win, given that he was not the most powerful man in the country.

JP Morgan loaned Mussolini $100 million in 1926, and Hoover forgave his war reparations debt, saving Fascism from an early grave.

Fascism is what the bankers like, because its ALL ABOUT THEM, and nothing about us.

True Progressives that love the Constitution need to see that true Conservatives, that love the Constitution as well, are not natural enemies. We can make common cause with them, and root out these criminals.

Then later we can argue about the finer points of monetary policy.

[Doofus]

'All the Mandelas are dead.'

This is what comes of making the
President read existential literature.

[DasBoot]

We get it, ProudPrimate. And it's a ridiculous metaphor coming from the man whose vice president voted against a resolution to free the real Nelson Mandela from prison in 1986. Where was the appreciation of Mandela's leadership qualities back then?

Iraqis are not afraid of Saddam in 2007. They are afraid of militias, and of Blackwater mercenaries shooting randomly into crowds. Thanks to Bush's lack of leadership qualities.

[ProudPrimate]

Not only they need to fear Blackwater, but we -- where will we be when Blackwater shows up to gather dissenters into the well prepared FEMA camps, while our natural defenders, our sons and daughters are in Iraq broken in a million pieces?

[peterg76]

Makes sense, there's just not enough "Mandelas"* left. (Funny, post-Soviet Europe managed with Lech Walesa, Boris Yeltsin and Vaclav Havel...)

* Contestants for "Mandela" must answer the following skill-testing question:

Will you demonstrate your gratitude for

the US invasion of your country, abolition of your sovereignty, destruction of your infrastructure, insults to your religions, kidnapping and torture of your citiznes, dismantling of your economy, reckless neglect of weapons, disbanding of the only forces that could provide security, plunder of 6000 years of culture heritage, and inciting of murderous sectarian divisions turning Iraqi agains Iraqi

by

handing over your country's oil and only prospective hope for prosperity and then cheerfully thanking the war criminals for the privilege of doing so?

[1will]

Prety misleading headline.

[ProudPrimate]

I never thought I'd be defending Bush, for crissake, especially on the issue of using "nuance". But COME ON, PEOPLE! Read the context.

Here is the original article, OK? Wire service.

====================(quote)
'Saddam killed Iraq Mandelas'
WASHINGTON: US President George W Bush yesterday declared there were no more "Mandelas" left to help aid reconciliation in Iraq because former dictator Saddam Hussein had killed them all.

There could be no "instant democracy in Iraq" because "people are still recovering from Saddam Hussein's brutal rule," Bush said.

Referring to former South African president Nelson Mandela, who led the fight against apartheid to become a symbol of reconciliation and hope, Bush said of Iraq: "I heard somebody say, 'Now where's Mandela?"

"Well, Mandela is dead. Because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas."
=====================(end quote)

See that? no more "Mandelas". See the quote marks? OK, let me explain it to you:

If the reporter had asked "where are the Iraqis of Mandela's stature?" would you have understood?

See it's a METAPHOR. A METAPHOR. OK?

The elevator door opens, you hear a snippet of conversation, saying "Mandela is dead", the door closes, and you flatter yourselves into thinking you know what was being talked about.

It's a METAPHOR. There was no reason to bring Mandela into the conversation about Iraq in a literal sense. It had no bearing. But his leadership qualities had bearing. "Where are those leadership qualities?" That's all.

[realpolitic]

Vice President Cheney, as a congressman, said Mandela was a terrorist and now Bush has finally killed him off completely. Perhaps they miss the good ole' days of the Apartheid regime in South Africa?

[RDixon]

Bush does not believe in God of any shape or form, unless by God, you mean money.
He also does not believe in satan or hell.
If he did, he surely would not have committed the acts that he has in his life so far.

[Simplicio]

Bush is no Mandela. He is "My name is Legion" (an expression used by Lyndon La Rouche to designate Bush, from in Mark 5:9).

[nomobull]

delusional

[PADDYWHACK]

Cheney of sock puppet fame,wanted Mandela arrested as a terrorist after he was in prison for 27 years.Shrub's invocation of his name is a sacrilege since he is an actual terrorist.He will live long enough to account for his genocide,if that is acrime when arabs are involved.

[ProudPrimate]

yep -- diamonds and Krugerands? Ja! Kafirs? Niet!

Mandela is one of a handful of giants of the twentieth century, for character. For every genius, there is a retard equally distant from 100 IQ. For every monster there is a paragon. For every Cheney a Mandela.

[thicky]

Maybe the Iraqi Mandela was in Fallujah in April of 2003:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0429-01.htm

[BufoAmericanus]

Mandella, huh?

What about, oh...

Let's say a guy who sorta' stradled the warring factions of a religion, whose lands had been occupied by a foreign Empire, from far away.

Maybe a guy like that existed... But then he pissed off both sides of the religion. So they would hand him over to the occupying Empire to be gotten rid of. So they take him, but he really hasn't committed a crime, other than hanging with the people who were fighting the empire... So, to get a confession and maybe even some information on the "terrorists", they strap him up to a car battery, throw him into a sleeping bag, sexually humiliate him, and then maybe give him a good scourging and hang him out on cross or something?