Usually he’s just too easy a target to bother posting on his many gaffes, and after almost two full terms you’d think you’d get used to this president, but unfortunately George Bush still conspires to surprise with another incredible dose of the stupid.
Part of the reason why there is not this instant democracy in Iraq is because people are still recovering from Saddam Hussein’s brutal rule.
I thought an interesting comment was made when somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, where’s Mandela? Well, Mandela is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas. He was a brutal tyrant that divided people up and split families, and people are recovering from this.
So there’s a psychological recovery that is taking place. And it’s hard work for them. And I understand it’s hard work for them. Having said that, I’m not going the give them a pass when it comes to the central government’s reconciliation efforts.
Of course it’s already on heavy rotation on You Tube where the WTF! impact strikes even harder.
Maybe he’s been using Miss Teen South Carolinas map of the Iraq as a guide.
And this man has access to the “Big Red Button”
This isn’t stupid. Hussein DID kill anyone capable of establishing a Mandela-like profile against Hussein’s dictatorship.
You do understand that “Mandela” in this case doesn’t literally mean Nelson Mandela?
And that’s supposed to make it sound better Tim? Oh, and I thought Chalabi and the exile de jour was supposed to be Iraq’s “Mandela”? Sorry buddy, that don’t cut it.
Oh, and right about now I think I should say something about a turkey……but I won’t.
So why is his comment stupid?
Indeed, Phil. A few years ago they were hailing Chalabi and then various other
thugsstatesmen like Alawi as the “Thomas Jefferson” of Iraq. Why anyone takes Bush seriously is beyond me. Thomas Friedman got it right when he said Bush had completely given up taking responsibility for Iraq himself. Up to Petraeus to fix it. Up to the Iraqis to get their shit together. Up to the next President to decide how to get out. Farcical from start to finish.Too quick to pull the ‘stupid’ trigger Phil. For those who don’t get the subtlety of his statement, try substituting the word ‘Mandela(s)’ in Mr Bush’s statement with ‘people like Mandela’.
Bush is in heavy rationalisation mode now. Blame the victim. It’s a sure sign that he now knows, at least subconsciously or privately, that he screwed up royally in invading Iraq.
And it’s a good sign.
Afterall, it wouldn’t be good to think the the US president, leader of the world’s greatest democracy, had zero moral or intellectual pretensions.
The true examples of stupidity are the people who are having a WTF moment about this. It must be hard work to intentionally misunderstand the obvious.
Tim asks a legitimate question. How was Bush’s statement stupid? Please explain.
It’s too late. This is being labelled a ‘gaffe’ by the MSM and is about to enter GWB folklore.
BBB
Yes, obviously, it’s a “gaffe” to note that decades of brutal, murderous repression might have a negative impact on a nation’s political culture.
Where have all the Madelas gone
Long time passing
Where have all the Mandelas gone?
Long time ago
Where have all the Mandelas gone?
Saddam has killed them every one
When will they ever learn?
When will they ever learn?
It’s stupid because it’s taking a car running the tyres bald, cooking them engine, driving it into a ditch and then asking where all the Brabhams have gone.
Tim Blair of the Daily Telegraph has a point.
Pity he didn’t notice the Daily Telegraph is also running with the Bush-Mandela
‘Gaffe’ story.
Bush’s Mandela Gaffe ‘Out There’
Even Blair’s own Daily Telegraph knows that “Look What Stupid Bush Said” stories draw plenty of traffic.
What’s all this about a turkey?
The news department of the Daily Telegraph (Tim Blair works in a different department, the Oped Department) didn’t call Bush stupid. Phil did.
Phil needs to explain his statement. Or otherwise, he looks stupid to the people who visit this, er, blog.
Good thing Bush didn’t say Iraq has no Martin Luther Kings. The left would say “A HA! See, we told you Bushitler was stupid! Martin Luther King died!”
It’s a metaphor gentlemen. A metaphor.
Tim Blair became one of the most popular bloggers in Australia in 2002-2004 because of his occasionally funny work in pointing out the hypocrisy of the mainstream media.
Now he’s a part of the mainstream media, with his gig as opinion editor and columnist with The Daily Telegraph, he goes after a blog like LP that pulls some 3200 visitors a day, while ignoring the kind of mainstream media that pulls hundreds of thousands of visitors a day. His own newspaper :
Tim Blair’s Bush-Mandela ‘Gaffe’ Gaffe
Blair, like Andrew Bolt, has still not acknowledged that the biggest and most influential promoter of the ‘hysteria’ over global warming is not Al Gore, but Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch : “climate change poses a clear, catastrophic threats.”
No prizes for guessing why Bolt and Blair ignore Murdoch’s ceaseless promotion of that threat.
Darryl lies.
No Bush defender here, but I’m afraid on this one tim & co. are right, and Phil and co. are wrong.
To be honest, rather than making Bush look stupid, the remark actually demonstrates a rare glimmer of wit, in nimbly using a metaphor to both answer the (somewhat irrelevant) question and move past it into a wider context. It shows that the man can actually think on his feet, even if it’s only once every time Halley’s comet appears. It also demonstrates the sheer perversity (in the literal sense) of many of Bush’s more extreme critics, who live behind a number of funny little barricades themselves, and won’t give credit where it’s due because it doesn’t suit them. Either that or else it demonstrates their own stone ignorance, in not perceiving a fairly simple rhetorical construction. Any high school debate-team member could explain to you what Bush was doing. Not encouraging either way, and it’s worth remembering that the inability of Bush’s many opponents to unite critical-mass numbers under the aegis of an unassailably principled, practical and sane opposition, amounted in effect to virtual aiding and abetting. The response to this non-story helps illustrate why.
I don’t think Bush’s overall point is correct, though, so in the end none of it matters so much except to the shouters. Bush lost Iraq back in 2003 when he went in in a fashion that was morally, politically, intellectually, diplomatically, and even militarily incompetent. (Arguably wrong, too, though I think that can at least be disputed; but indisputably incompetent.) There’s an argument to be made (although who knows what to believe any more?) that the whole matter would be better treated as a technical issue now, rather than a strictly political one. Bush/Rice etc. have long proven effectively incapable of the task, so perhaps it’s best that they be isolated from it somehow, and some indifferent but competent technician like Petraeus or someone like him, be given the task of basic damage control.
Yeah, Bolt went hard on the boss on that one. He quoted Murdoch’s mum as a non-believer in “the clear, catastrophic threats” posed by climate change. Ouch.
And then total silence from Bolt and Blair, for months, as the Murdoch rolled out the world’s biggest media and publicity campaign on the ‘reality’ of global warming and why every Murdoch reader and Murdoch media consumer should become a warrior against climate change.
Blair’s own Daily Telegraph ran an eight part liftout on the issues, with the totally non-hysterical moniker of “Saving Planet Earth” plastered all over it.
And what did Blair have to say about that? Did he shred the Daily Telegraph for engaging in hysteria or the promotion of “the most superstitious pagan faith of all” as Andrew Bolt likes to call it?
Did he? Of course not.
Blair’s blindness to his own newspaper’s promotion of the Bush ‘gaffe’ is just another example of his willingness to bash supposedly Lefty blogs, while completely ignoring the same kind of behaviour from the mainstream media.
The difference now is that Tim Blair is the mainstream media.
Please tell me you didn’t REALLY think Bush mean Saddam killed the actual Nelson Mandella? Please tell me you were just acting like a typical leftist by saying he meant something he didn’t mean. Because if you DID really think he was talking about the real Mandella, you aren’t very bright.
Just when you think the left couldn’t get an stupider.
You’ve got so used to the fecklessness of the left.
This comes along to tickle the funny bone.
Thanks for your addition to the communal pot.
heh …
Rich
Phil, its you, we are talking about. Phil ? …. hello? … you there? … Phil? oh Phiiiiiiiiiiiil?
Bush said “Mandela is dead”. Mandela is NOT dead. He is 89 years old.
Bush thought Mandela had died, otherwise he would not have used his name in this context. Bush is stupid because he is a head of state who does not know that one of the most famous men in the world is still alive and dancing.
Using Mandela’s “death” as a metaphor for Saddam’s murderous actions simply does not work. Anyone who thinks it does is stupid too.
But more seriously, anyone who thinks Bush’s statement is worthy of defence, lacks a sense of humour.
Really, that’s tragic.
Shhh! Tim Blair’s Orc army are massing beyond the firewall! Keep quiet and still and the Black Riders may yet pass us by!
And never misunderstimate Bush. As for our own PM, he’s the Mandela of Steel.
Uh, Grace, can you read? Bush did not say Mandela is dead. He was using Mandela as a foile, if you will, to highlight the fact that Saddam had likely murdered or imprisoned anyone who had the moral fortitude of a Nelson Mandela. I don’t understand why this rather simple concept is beyond your mind. Perhaps its because your mind is closed.
Tim and his almost entirely extinct Bush claquer confreres clutch the straw of the imagined and spurious distinction between Bushes “Mandelas” and the supposedly more sensible “people like Mandela”.
Dream on claquers. Why deny denialism so late in the day?
If Bush’s Iraq fiasco lurched off the rails because of the alleged extinction of “people like Mandela”, why didn’t the most expensive intelligence service in the world detect this before Bush’s
CrusadersLiberators blundered into Iraq?Bush’s mouthpieces assured the world that millions of proto-Mandelas would greet the
CrusadersLiberators wirh flowers and chocolates.Bush and his remaining claquers can’t have it both ways.
So where are all the flowers and chocolates?
It’s a metaphor? I seeee … so Iraq was like South Africa, under a white colonial rule, and there were these indigenous leaders who led the fight for equality, but Saddam who was from the tiny group of white minority rulers had them all killed.
He should of said all the Iraqi Mandelas were Bikos and then we would of understood.
Actually, I fail to see any parallels whatsoever between South Africa and Iraq – the analogy certainly doesn’t seem to have occurred to Nelson Mandela – and only a dumbass like Bush would imply there are some.
Now if he’d said the Israelis had a policy of assassinating all the Palestinian Mandelas, that might have made some sense.
Phew! I’m glad we have so many, ahhhh, what’s the term I’m looking for………? It’s right here on the tip of my tongue………
Ah, got it, “Deep South Kremlinologists” visiting LP because without them we’d never know what Bush actually meant to say.
Thanks fellas that was a great example of Web 2.0 crowdsourcing. I feel better now.
because without them we’d never know what Bush actually meant to say.
Well someone has to correct the people who still believe Che was a doctor of good standing and that Communism is still a really fine idea.
– Nora
When Bush was asked “where’s Mandela?”, do you think the questioner was asking the whereabouts of Nelson M?
Or does it make more sense that the questioner meant “where are the Mandelas for Iraq? Where’s that one magnificent presence who can take the public stage and offer such a forceful moral example that society follows?”
Because, if someone really had been confused enough to ask Bush where Nelson Mandela was, it likely would have been John Kerry. He gets national boundaries mixed up a lot, I hear.
(And, all of your “well if it WAS an example, what a STOOPID example it was!!” comments aren’t providing the cover for which they were typed. Phil still comes off as either a bit thick (“he thinks Saddam killed Nelson M!!”), or a bit of a straw-grasper.)
“
”
I used to love that clip where Pee Wee Herman does something dumb, and then he’d say “I meant to do that!”
Please tell me you didn’t REALLY think Bush mean Saddam killed the actual Nelson Mandella? Please tell me you were just acting like a typical leftist by saying he meant something he didn’t mean.
Yes, I was aware it was a metaphor, and so would have 99.9% of people clicking on this thread today. Those 99.9% are also quite capable of spotting your attempt (and Tim’s) to suggest otherwise.
I guess this hypothetical new Mandela is in the same place as that other apocryphal darling of the Right – the aborted baby who would have come up with a cure for cancer ™ .
Shorter Nora and Bobby. “Bush ain’t stupid. He’s in agreeance with us.”
They’re He-ere!
I notice none of them have loudly condemned female genital mutilation on this thread. I loudly condemn them for that! Where’s the humanity?
The Mandala of Steel, Mercurius! Free Tibet from the ChiComms! The reds are coming!
All hat, no cattle.
Shorter Katz: This post is indefensible, so I’ll try to lay the boot into a few people who have said it is indefensible. Riiiiiiight………
Yes, also, none of the Orcs have bothered to mention all the Mandelas who were killed in Darfur.
They’re so desperate to defend Bush they forgot about teh DARFUR!
Hypocrites, every last one of them
Bobby: Subtlety ain’t some people’s strong point.
To avoid appearing insane, or at the least, somewhat unhinged, this entire post should be deleted by the author.
I’m beginning to realise that most of Phil’s posts are as dumb as a hammer. In the words of Andy Dufresne, “how could you be so obtuse?”.
Tell us about the “good news from Iraq”. You know you want to.
Shorter SATP: “I don’t understand why people laugh at Bush. How is he dumber than me?”
Shorter me: “I enjoy planting a well-targetted boot.”
For the benefit of the Orcs, I would also like to take this opportunity to mourn:
- All the unborn Mandelas slain in the womb by the murderous feminazis.
- The indigenous Mandelas condemmed to a life of poverty and deprivation and sexual abuse because of soppy left-liberal polices that prevented us from seizing enough of their children or breeding out the black and saving them from their stone-age culture.
- The third-world Mandelas who can’t enjoy the fruits of globalisation because of the latte-sipping treehugger Church of Kyoto.
- All the female Islamic Mandelas with falsified asylum-seeker applications and fictional honour-killing stories who were betrayed by unscrupulous pinko journalists who wanted to report “facts” instead of TEH TRUTH.
If I have forgotten any Mandelas, anywhere, anytime, you may label me a hypocrite. But please understand that the oversight is inadvertent and only due to the righteous outrage that has temporarily clouded my mind and made me forget a Mandela or two around the place.
Jon Stewart isn’t impressed with Bush’s press conference:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/09/21/daily-show-cliff-notes-for-bushs-press-conference/
Mercurius, you’ve forgotten the Mandela that Ronald Reagan branded a terrorist.
Shorter response from Katz: My hands are over my ears, and I am yelling loudly “I can’t hear you”! ……. Bwahahahahaaa……
Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
Lefties are all teh stoopid while righties are on top of nuance, rational and clear argument, and devastating rebuttals:
http://timblair.net/ee/index.php/weblog/comments/nuance_missed/#295275
[from the flying monkey cave]
Bush is clearly disappointed he didn’t get to meet
the lateMr Mandela at the recentOPECAPEC conference inAustriaAustralia.Phil:
Damn you! I had only just stumbled onto this news item, written down the link then came onto LP to post it on Saturday Salon to lighten up whatever topic was starting to get far too serious …. and then I find you had beaten me to the gun. Grrrrr. Just wait till next time …. [storms off - stage right - in towering huff].
j-p-z:
The intent of what the Failed Monarch was trying to communicate would have been clear enough to most people who come to Larvatus Prdeo …. but the words and the concept he used were less than fortunate. Cheers
So why is his comment stupid?
Easy, tim. Either you take it literally, or you take it as a extremely clumsy metaphor. It’s a stupid comment.
Yes. They’re dead. In the case of the Iraqi Mandela’s, they’ve been gassed, shot, or shredded in an industrial paper shredder. So there’s few available to lead the country. That’s exactly the point that Chimpy was making. True, they were brown and, therefore, not exactly of much interest to the normal commenters here. But they had value to the future of Iraq. Bush understands this. Why not you?
I’m missing the point of this item. What’s supposed to be stupid here?
Sounds a tad Mandelistic, or aren’t Muslims eligible?
Okay, I read the comments and now I get it.
People who routinely call Bush Hitler are objecting to Bush’s use of an analogy.
Don’t you realize Hitler would be 118 now? And being Austrian-born, he’s not eligible to be elected US president anyway? How stupid can you be?
Anticipate pronouncement from
Tony Snowwhoever the latest presidential interpreter is:He wasn’t being literally stoopid, he was being metaphorically stoopid.
Osama bin Laden is renowned for his metaphorical language.
Psy-Ops have indicated that al Qaeda have a dangerous metaphor deployment capability advantage over the US.
Mr Bush is valiantly attempting to close the Metaphor Gap.
Only liberal wimps use similes.
In other news, Abraham Lincoln called the U.S. a single house (divided), when in fact many individual Americans own separate homes, and Franklin Roosevelt, asked where the planes in the Doolittle raid on Japan came from, cited a nonexistent country from a work of fantasy, Lost Horizon, suggesting he is in the final stages of syphilis.
It’s a pity that Bush didn’t heed the real, living Nelson Mandela in 2003:
The difference between that and Bush’s latest gaffe is that it doesn’t need any special pleading to explain at all. I’m seeing a lot of special pleading on this thread.
Shorter Bush – I’m not responsible for the debacle in Iraq. Saddam is responsible because he killed all the people who could have sorted this mess out for us.
Sounds pretty stupid to me. The fact that tim and his flying monkeys think it’s nuanced stupidity doesn’t make it any less stupid.
In a slight aside, the usual wingnut narrative regarding Mandella is that he was a terrorist.
Speaking of wingnuts…
A few posters here have noted that Mandela was actually convicted of terrorism (which in his eyes was fighting for freedom), an action against apartheid. It was his extended gaol term that led to his rise to statesman, and the downfall of apartheid.
These days – any “Mandela” in Iraq is classified as an “insurgent”, a “terrorist”. There is no room anymore in the neo-cons rhetoric for a “freedom fighter”… that is the saddest part of this whole saga. We are part of an occupation of a country, and we should allow them the opportunity to resolve their own problems without pressure to ensure that the solutions adhere to to neo-con view of the world.
From one who does not like Bush, I cannot see how his comment was a gaffe.
I’m starting to think that there’s something much more atavistic at work here.
Left-liberalism has been morphing into a religious structure for quite some time. It’s got its own major and minor deities, its Paradise (socialized medicine) and its Hell (AmeriKKKa), its devils and demons (you know who), its devotional chants and mantras (No Blood For Oil! Take Back the Night! Hey Hey! Ho Ho!).
It appears that Bush, by blasphemously taking the name of the sacred deity Man-De-La in vain, has violated a religious Tabu. Now the various clerics, ulema and Berkeley profs must consult the sacred Book of Marx, to find out which volcano he must be tossed into to appease the god.
Who knows, maybe some Danish guy will draw a cartoon about it.
Back!
You know Gummo, Chalabi and other exiles were supposed to be the “Mandelas” of Iraq brought back to save the country, it just doesn’t follow from there that Saddam killed them all.
Of course now I’m now left wondering at how many “Mandelas” have been killed or driven into exile by the coalition invasion of Iraq and how many of them might have been in a position to save that country if the invasion had not occurred.
BTW, I’m astounded that the flying monkeys have read a quick and simple post about Bush’s poor public speaking and mangled and inarticulate use of language (hence the Miss Teen Sth Carolina linkage) as they have, it should have been pretty obvious that I fully understood what Bush was on about in my response to Tim.
The next time I do one of these I’ll speak slowly and flesh things a bit more for Tim’s mouth breathing demographic…..only using three letter words in caps of course.
I can’t believe Bush is stupid enough to believe that there are multiple “Mandelas”. Everyone knows Mandela has no twins. Unless Bush is involved in some sick corporate genetic-engineering cloning scam funded by Monsanto, that is.
I wouldn’t put it past him though – Bush killed Hitler, after all.
j_p_z, it’s not the leftists who are making this into a huge issue. The word almost universally used to describe this is “gaffe”, which implies a trivial error where one can see the original intent (c’mon, those implying that Phil and others couldn’t see what Bush was attempting to convey are being disingenuous).
Bush does have a history of gaffes, which is mostly just a personal quirk but which certainly can be occasionally startling until one translates them into what his speechwriters wanted him to say before he folksied it all up. This one merely had a higher WTF? quotient than Bush’s usual, so people are talking it up a bit more than usual.
It’s our tighty-righty blow-ins who are making this some big issue. Gaffes are amusing, not disastrous: why do they care so much that some people are doing a little point and mock?
Absolutely. He has some all-time pearlers of near Quale-magnitude.
This isn’t one though.
Indeed TT.
Some of the most evil people never made gaffes.
Bush’s penchant for gaffes is not a marker for evil.
Gaffes are a product of ignorance, a tin ear, and/or inattention. These can be quite endearing qualities in some characters, for example the Duke of Edinburgh.
Interestingly, Ronald Reagan could never be accused of being burdened with erudition. However, he was remarkably empathetic to audience and context.
Richard Nixon, on the other hand, was a master of the arts of political manipulation. And he listened with huge attention. Yet he had very little empathy. The Watergate Tapes are a monument to his strengths and weaknesses.
Craig Mc, I suppose what’s attracted me and others to this one is the use of Mandela, for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he himself was once a “terrorist” and communist and all the other ists and isms thrown in.
There were quite a few folks on the right that would have seen Mandela executed for his “crimes” so for me it was interesting from that POV.
Of course more interesting to me was how inarticulately (?) he made his point, but it looks like that got lost in translation. C’est la vie. Now lets get on with enjoying our weekend.
tigtog said:
câ??mon, those implying that Phil and others couldnâ??t see what Bush was attempting to convey are being disingenuous
Was Grace being disingenuous when she said:
Bush said â??Mandela is deadâ??. Mandela is NOT dead. He is 89 years old.
Bush thought Mandela had died, otherwise he would not have used his name in this context. Bush is stupid because he is a head of state who does not know that one of the most famous men in the world is still alive and dancing.
Keep digging guys – this is hilarious. The ‘realty based’ communities ‘Mandela Moment’.
All together now:
On the road to Mandela,
Where the freedom fighters are,
And at dawn we’re off to Tehran for an all-out nukular war!
In a slightly further aside, let us not forget that the 2IC (or, perhaps, equal 1IC) of the Bush administration voted against a resolution calling for Mandela’s (the actual one, not the Iraqi metaphorical one) release – because “the ANC was then viewed as a terrorist organization.”
So, killing the Mandelas is bad – but locking them up for decades is fine.
Yeh, well, everybody nose that if the Democrats hadn’t burnt the Bushes some time back we probably would have, just about, by now had peace in our time in teh free world.
Well, I disagree with Grace’s interpretation but hadn’t actually noticed her comment especially when I skimmed the thread. It’s obvious, to me at least, that Bush meant to say “their Mandela/s” instead of just “Mandela/s”, but he stuffed it up.
Most of us knew what he was trying to convey, and it wasn’t nearly as clever and nuanced as is being represented. And even then he couldn’t get it right, and that’s the bit that’s the gaffe.
and we closed down a major city for this level of intelligence,and john Howard calls him a fiend?yeah right
and we closed down a major city for this level of intelligence,and john Howard calls him a friend?yeah right
Bush is right in suggesting that Saddam’s Iraq was inhospitable territory for ‘Mandelas’.
But he’s turned it into ground-zero.
Metaphor that George.
Sorry Phil have to disagree with your original post, I think Bush may have had a point about all the ‘Mandelas’ being killed by Saddam. On the other hand you’re right to point out that many other ‘Mandelas’ may have been forced to flee or have been killed in recent violence as an ultimate consequence of the invasion.
How embarrassing for you. The President’s quote was a compliment to Mandela. A leader during tyranny who comes out the other side to lead his nation out of darkness. A moral man. None exist in Iraq. Saddam had them killed. That’s Bush’s point. He did not say Mandela has passed. It’s respectful to wish there was a Mandela in Iraq. Should we just not bring his name up until the 89 year old passes away? The original question that the President was referring to was someone asking: “Where is this region’s (middle east) Mandela?” Is that person to be derided as someone who mistakenly thought that a frail 89 year-old Mandela was making the rounds, dodging jihadists in Iraq? I really can’t believe that someone would have misunderstood the President’s evoking of Mandela’s name in his statement. I can believe this though:
As one of the legions of faceless, nameless, wise-ass, know-it-all bloggers to get yet another shot in at George Bush… you should be embarrassed. You should be embarrassed that you’re among a generation of kids who are getting their “news” snippets from YouTube, the daily show, and fellow bloggers.
tigtog said;
Most of us knew what he was trying to convey, and it wasn’t nearly as clever and nuanced as is being represented. And even then he couldn’t get it right, and that’s the bit that’s the gaffe.
Nice spin there tigtog. The OP linked to You Tube where most comments are of the ‘Grace’ variety. He wouldn’t have done that if he meant how you and he are trying to spin it. The You Tube headline also says “Bush pronounces Mandela dead”.
Probably the most stupid post on LP for quite a while although I am sure Phil can better it.
So quick to condemn Bush Phil you can’t even pick up the most straightfoward nuance of language. Bush’s statement made complete sense unlike your own.
You are the plastic turkey here Phil.
Ah so the real problem is that Saddam killed all the good Iraqi men, leaving only the scum alive. I wonder if anyone would have been so eager to “liberate” the buggers if this sad fact had been known earlier.
One more thing – what about the moral women? Did Saddam manage to exterminate all of them too?
Muqdata Al Sadr as Mandela? Ken: I see where you’re coming from, but he lacks Mandela’s gravitas, evenhandedness, and (dare I say it), quality dentistry. I know he gets on better with the Sunnis than SCIRI, but he’s been accused of ordering death squads as well. Unlike Chalabi, he never went into exile even when his relatives were getting killed by Saddam. That gives him some legitimacy
I thought Ali Al-Sistani would be closer to Mandela. Or would Desmond Tutu be a better analogy?
Heh heh that’s pretty good coming from someone who links their commenting S/N to an anonymous site. Good choice though.
As for the question about the Middle East’s Mandela, be careful what you wish for dude. Some might say he’s alive and well and his name is Osama bin Laden. Only a singularly obtuse or deluded individual would take it for granted that a ‘leader during tyranny who comes out the other side to lead his nation out of darkness’ will be someone who meets the approval of the enlightened Iraqi invaders.
Oh well Harry, at least he’s in good company.
tigtog, I think it’s possible that there are certain micro-tones in American speech patterns that you’re just not used to picking up. I understood perfectly what Bush was saying without having to think twice about it, (and I didn’t cringe at any perceived infelicity, which I normally DO do when listening to his manglings); and in fact if I were trying to convey those same thoughts in conversation, I probably would have said it in almost the same way. And me and the English language go way back together; we even dated for a while, back when we were both crazy and in our twenties, but after that, we’ve still managed to stay friends.
Defending George W. Bush on the intertubes on a beautiful Spring Saturday? What a sad thing to do with your time.
Ah, Mark, but here it’s the middle of the night yesterday, and I’m away from home, and I think there are monsters under this bed.
Perhaps so, j_p_z, but the spectacle of the wingnuts expressing their confected outrage at lefties really is rather boring. Some people need more interesting hobbies.
I don’t think Darryl lies Tim…I reckon a certain media mogul just likes having it both ways…per usual…it’s SHOW ME THE MONEY!:
http://foxattacks.com/blog/5287-fox-attacks-the-environment
“For the past year, it has been our privilege to work with Robert Greenwald and the amazing crew at Brave New Films. Their series of short, powerful videos exposing FOX News Channel’s bias, political agitprop and hypocrisy have had a major impact on the political scene. The latest FOX Attacks video reveals that Rupert Murodch is nothing more than a hypocrite. Recently he made a statement that all of News Corporation would “go green” by 2010. At the time we all wondered if this would mean a change in the anti-global warming message on Murdoch’s FOX News Channel. No such luck. If anything, the rhetoric has been escalated and the personal attacks multiplied tenfold. So it’s time to DO SOMETHING! Go to FOX Attacks, watch the video, then sign the letter asking Home Depot to stop advertising on FOX News!”
(News Hounds)
I’m all for promoting gaffes when they actually exist.
As far as I can see, the publication around the world of the “gaffe” angle of the story stems from a reuters feed.
Accepting Reuters feeds at face value has resulted in egg on the face more than once recently. tsk tsk tsk…..
and there’s plenty more to feed on:
http://foxattacks.com/
Wasn’t Mandela a lawyer who went on to do amazing things? With stuff like this going on in Iraq I’m not surprised there are no potential Mandelas rising to the occasion:
“An Iraqi lawyer who was wounded in a shooting incident in Baghdad over the weekend that involved American security contractors is telling his side of the story.
Hassan Jabir was among about a dozen people wounded in the shooting, which Iraqi police say killed at least 11 others.
Jabir says nobody had been firing at the security guards from the American company Blackwater USA. He says he was stuck in traffic when he heard the Americans shout, “Go, Go, Go.” Moments later, he says, bullets pierced his back. He says men, women and children were shot as they dove from their vehicles, trying to crawl to safety.
Blackwater insists that its employees had come under fire from armed insurgents, and that they shot back to protect State Department employees.”
(Iraqi lawyer says Americans weren’t shot at before opening fire: Associated Press: 9/20/2007)
And even Professors aren’t safe:
“Last Thursday, March 30, 2006, American occupation soldiers shot dead 72 years old Professor Qais Husameldeen Juma’a as he left the College of Agriculture at Baghdad University and had just passed their check point.
He had returned from Australia to supervise a few PhD students at the College.”
(Free Iraq, April 05, 2006: Professor Qais Juma’a killed by American occupation soldiers)
Seems to me Saddam ain’t the only reason we can’t find the spirit of Nelson Mandela in Iraq…eh George?
Katz [10:41am];
All the U.S. psyops experts must be bald by now — through tearing out their hair in anger and frustration every day. It’s not the only advantage the Bush-Rove-Cheney-Rumsfeldt gang handed to al-Qaeda on a golden plate.
Apart from having a huge Moslem population of its own upon whom to call, the United States has the world’s highest concentration “Christian” extremists and religious fanatics, enough to have a re-run of the all the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, the Reformation and the Counter-Reformation and the Thirty years War a dozen times over …. and yet it consistently left all the running on religion, ideology and the conduct of the warS to the dusty unshaven “towelheads” whom they despised …. and no, photo opportunities and sound bites with a backgrounds of raptured admirers and/or a big helicopter and/or a plaque that says “White House” does not consititute a coherent strategy to attack an Enemy’s weak points.
What a bunch of surrender-monkeys!
j-p-z:
Here in Australia we had a bunch of quasi-religious Left ruin things for the rational, progressive, social justice Left over nearly half a century.
The term “Liberal” in Australia summons up visions of corporate welfare [at the expense of hard-working tax-payers], anti-competitive practices [cunningly disguised as competition policy] and blatant privilege [dressed up as encouraging individual enterprise]. It’s a local terminology thing. Think of a bunch of Republicans befuddled by too much Kentucky moonshine waitng for the return of Taft crossed with a herd of die-hard Peronists.
Just as a reminder, the original quote was:
“I thought an interesting comment was made â?? somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, â??Now, whereâ??s Mandela?â?? Well, Mandelaâ??s dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.” From here.
Yes, I appreciate the metaphor that Bush was trying to use. He was incapable of saying it correctly, and ending up stating that “Mandela”, not “the Iraqi Mandela”, was dead. English is a language full of nuance, and the nuance of W’s exact phraseology is that Nelson had carked it, which is untrue. Bush managed to display apparent ignorance if taken literally, combined with inability to use English to convey the intended meaning. Not impressive for a Yale graduate, or a Head of State. Yes, he is stupid. I agree with Phil’s and Tigtog’s points above.
It is cute that the Right Wing Dead Meats are making out that W’s use of metaphor is stunning and artful if you only apply the right degree of telepathy, so as to hear it as it was presumably meant. But that need for telepathy is not acceptable, coming from the President of the USA, and we are neither stupid nor overly pedantic to criticise it or him. The leader of the most powerful and belligerent nation on the planet should not need an interpreter to communicate unambiguously in his purported native language. If they are selecting leaders like that, then their political system is badly broken, and they need reminding regularly until they fix it, for all our sakes.
And in the meantime, Nelson not only lives, but has vindicated the comment in his speech at the International Women’s Forum, January 2003, that W “cannot think properly”.
Stupid, dumb, ignorant Lefties. Always projecting their own weaknesses onto their opponents. Dumb, dumb, dumb and so incredibly predictable.
That would probably sound better set to music:
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,
Dumb, Incredibly dumb,
amazingly dumb,
Predictably dumb,
Surprisingly dumb!
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,
Dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,
…
“Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas’. It isn’t deep or complex to work out what is meant here.
It is obvious Phil that you got it wrong. Your cheerleader supporters can’t conceal that. By trying to create a smokescreen they just call into question their own veracity and lack of credibility. They also turn a mistake into a blatant lie.
But I fear truth doesn’t matter to you lot much does it? Just keep going and hope that the repetition gets your message across.
Criticism of obvious error to Mark is a right-wing political attack – ‘confected outrage’ indicating a ‘lack of hobbies’. And why worry about lying about George Bush anyway when the Comrades already know how bad he is?
Shout out to hc for the poiest po-face that ever was poed.
Thanks for the fun thread, it’s been a hoot.
I watched it on YouTube before I read this bizarre thread (and my goodness me, is there not one right-winger in the world who can write a correct English sentence?) and I was just assuming that Bush was repeating whatever was coming through his earpiece. (After the bulge-in-the-coat episode I just assume he always has one, and besides, nobody would be mad enough to let him get up there and wing it, would they?)
The look on his face after he says ‘Well, Mandela’s dead‘ looked to me like ‘OMG WTF, what have they just made me say?’ But nobody has mentioned an earpiece here, so I guess he wasn’t.
It’s the long pause after the word ‘dead’ that does the damage. People ought to watch the footage before they come to any conclusion about what was going on; the transcript is quite misleading.
Metaphor or not, it was a staggeringly tactless thing to say — about anyone at all, much less a much-loved and revered global hero well into his 80s, of whose death, when it does occur, Bush will probably be among the first to know. But imagine the right-wing hysteria if Mandela had been making a speech during which he said — metaphorically, of course — ‘Well, Bush is dead!’ and then paused and looked around him, wild-eyed and hunted, for much too long.
hc,
For some reason your comment reminds me of Aesop’s fable about the stork and the cranes.
lol, I do feel sorry for the wingnuts.
First there were no nuclear weapons, shredders, etc. It turned out the worst tortures in Iraq were the ones their own troops were carrying out.
Then they lost the whole fucking war, and Bin Laden, and it turned out their own governments were funneling cash to Hussein.
Then global warming turned out to be real, and people turned out to give a shit about it.
And now Howard’s about as popular as syphilis – but nowhere near as ubiquitous. Their ultra-righty state Liberal brethren are a laughing stock coast to coast, and they face the soon to be reality of Campbell Newman being their most senior representative. Bush is arguably the worst president since Nixon – and when you’re including Reagan in that statement, you know that’s gotta hurt.
Poor little fellas. Things looked so good for a couple of years there. Oh well, they can always borrow Saddam’s shredder and end it all. After all, with the lack of global warming, I’m sure Hell has frozen over by now.
Dr Cat-
“is there not one right-winger in the world who can write a correct English sentence?) “
Delicately put. My views on this issue are usually more forthright than I like to be on LP.
“I was just assuming that Bush was repeating whatever was coming through his earpiece…and besides, nobody would be mad enough to let him get up there and wing it, would they?”
Probably, and isn’t that an incredibly sad comment on what passes for leadership in the USA?
“The look on his face…”
No, sorry: I think you’re over-interpreting. The longest pause was after “because”, and the facial expression was not OMGWTF. It was the usual blank look while listening to incoming dictation and trying to remember it. I’ve seen what Jello Biafra calls the “chimp caught in the headlights” look and it’s quite different.
I really don’t think that W spotted anything wrong with what he was remembering/being told to say. If this was dictation, we could add his prompters and scriptwriters to the legions of the damned, ignorant, lazy and stupid. Except that they are already there, of course.
“…then paused and looked around him, wild-eyed and hunted, for much too long.”
It’s that word “hunted”. You’ve got me visualising W in the woods, stalked by Cheney with a shotgun…
Long Live Mandela!
Funny thing is that the American threads are following the same pattern as this hilarious one. Seems like a rare show of solidarity from the rabid right.
crikey!…the x-treme Right-Winger’s have been sniffing Rush Limbaugh’s hair gel again…way too high for their own good. Time to come down to Earth delusional ones.
Bush made a dopey comment. Again. full stop.
“Nelson Mandela’s dead,
no, no, no no…he’s outside
laughin’ at the Chimp
Bush’ll fly his astral plane,
or ride his ‘bonza’ bike
Takes you trips around Baghdad,
races back the same day,
cowardly Chimp”
Bush also does quick trips to Anbar to spread his wisdom & goodies:
“In fact, even as President Bush spoke about “success” in Anbar, he was forced to admit that one “leader,” known as Sheik Abu Risha, with whom Bush had met in Anbar in early September had been assassinated the very day Bush delivered his rose-colored claims about Iraq’s progress.
New facts revealed about “Sheik” Abu Risha suggest big holes in Bush’s Anbar success story. Abu Risha, according to a report by journalist Greg Palast, was no sheik. In fact, he was known in his local area as a con man out to get a share of the US taxpayers’ dole. And he wasn’t killed by Al Qaeda, as the White House claims. He was killed by real Sunni leaders, writes Palast, who were unhappy with his schemes. ”
(Gen. Petraeus Didn’t Betray Us, Bush Did: By Joel Wendland, 9-21-07, 9:14 am)
http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/5872/1/32/
The Blairites are just having fun at Phil’s and his usual commenters’ expense. You made a glaring mistake believing that Bush’s use of “Mandela” as a metaphor was a gaffe. It wasn’t a gaffe and the plain meaning of his statement indicates it as a compliment to Nelson Mandela.
It’s also fun watching you try to explain it away. This is a good as watching Dan Rather explain it away. By all means, keep going.
But Tim’s question remains on the table. Phil has yet to answer it. How was Bush’s statement stupid? Please explain.
The sacred Name! The Name! Bush has defiled the sacred Name, by pronouncing it with his demonic unbeliever’s lips! This heresy must be punished, and the balance of the Cosmos restored, Man-de-la willing.
“…because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas.”
If so, then how will the poor Iraqis ever stand a chance of forming a government that thinks AIDS can be cured with garlic?
It turned out the worst tortures in Iraq were the ones their own troops were carrying out
patrickg. That statement is born of profound ignorance and is highly offensive.
Please retract it
“It turned out the worst tortures in Iraq were the ones their own troops were carrying out.”
I was against the war – and Bush and Howard.
But I work with the Iraqis community in Shepparton. What you say is an absolute disgrace not only to them, the other survivors but to the hundreds of thousands shot, raped, thrown off buildings, cut to bits, gassed and electrocuted.
I vote Labor and have done all my adult life – but when I see people who claim to be of the left making excuses (yes – that is what you were doing) for brutal fascists to score some stupid internet point it makes my blood boil.
patrickg – whoever you are, you should feel uttely ashamed of yourself, but I doubt you have the common decency or self-awareness to do so.
Jesus Andrew H, don’t bring the real world into things.
This thread amply demonstrates why blogs are more relevant than the MSM ,don’t you get it?
Thread closed for the evening, will re-open for business in the morning. Sleep beckons, good night.
1. Because it was a poorly articulated attempt to make an argument, which shows that the Leader of the Free World (TM) cannot put together a sentence that clearly states what he means.
2. Because, when talking about a beloved leader who is also 89 years old and may indeed die some day soon, one should be a bit more sensitive. South Africans who saw it and misunderstood it were worried that Mandela had actually died. This goes back to the first point, as well – Bush is hard enough to understand for those of us who speak English as a first language. Imagine the potential for misunderstanding among those who are relying on their limited grasp of English or a translation.
3. Because he was recycling a talking point that his ambassador to Iraq had used a couple of weeks ago, and he still bungled it.
4. Because point 3 also means that his claim that he â??heard somebody say, â??whereâ??s Mandela?â??â?? is crap. This is an argument the Bush administration is trying to push to explain their failure to establish a unified democratic Iraqi government with a stable security situation.
5. Because it suggests that the current failure of Iraq is entirely the fault of Saddam Hussein, and has nothing to do with the irresponsible lack of forethought and strategic planning throughout the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
6. Because it adopts a Messianic perspective where the only way reconciliation can occur is for the one true leader to rise up and unite the divided groups, and does nothing to offer a constructive solution to the thousands of people being blown up, shot, or driven from their homes as the sectarian conflict continues.
7. Because it ignores the fact that the actual Mandela was left rotting in prison for decades while many, including Dick Cheney, failed to endorse action against South Africa because they regarded the ANC as a terrorist organisation. This highlights the complexity of liberation and unification processes, which Bush completely fails to appreciate. How do we know that there isnâ??t an â??Iraqi Mandelaâ?? who is classified as a terrorist, an â??insurgentâ??, or a â??warlordâ?? by the Bush administration at this point?
8. In summary – because it was a naive and inarticulate expression of an oversimplified belief that one great leader can bring peace to Iraq. The only thing that was good about it is that Bush no longer seems to believe he is that one great leader.
True enough, Japerz.
But the mystery is that when President Bush heard in his earpiece the instruction to mention Nelson Mandela, the man who puts his faith in garlic, POTUS could have just said no!
But, as a premature verbal ejaculator, POTUS simply couldn’t pull out in time.
When I first read the transcript above, I understood Bush was speaking metaphorically.
But on “Weekend Sunrise” this morning they played the video (and called it a “gaffe”, natch) and it is indeed funny. Not stupid, but funny. “Mandela’s dead!” Bush exclaimed quite earnestly, almost as if he was really implying it literally. Of course, that’s not what he meant, but it sure sounds otherwise, and I can understand why people are LOLing and WTFing at this.
The presenters on “Weekend Sunrise” thought Bush was being literal, and they dragged in some bloviator who huffed and puffed about how “the intelligentsia” are getting their hate on W, and who ya gunna call when the Indonesians come a-knockin’ on Darwin? Pffft. Aussies love sticking it to authority, no matter who’s in charge.
But strewth, a sense of humour is required here, I think. Watching that video was hilarious.
Testify, Ptobias! Especially your 6th point:
People may want messiahs, but they generally end up with naughty boys instead. Take Zimbabwe: they got their Mandela, and a fat lot of good it did them.
Pavlov’s Cat:
If what you said about prompters whispering speeches to him is correct then it’s time The Born Loser’s puppeteers stopped smoking whoopie-weed whilst on duty.
j-p-z:
Nelson Mandela is a fine example of terrorist-turned-statesman and, given his behavior in recent years, maybe a better one than most. Other examples of terrorist-turned-statesman can be found, for instance, among the early leadership of the state of Israel.
Patrickg, you said
Not quite yet.
A peaceful, honourable and just resolution of the conflict in Iraq is possible if real statesmen, like Condaleeza Rice, and real military leaders, like General Petraeus, are allowed to get on with their job without interference from The Born Loser and from the The Crookest Crook. So long as the Americans fail to face reality and fail to sack these two surrender-monkeys, good Americans and good Iraqis will get killed and maimed every day of the week and the defeat and ruin of the U.S. and The West will be inevitable. Victory over terrorists throughout the world will happen when the boofheads in the White House are replaced by competent people who can look at war as something more than an arcade shoot-’em-down game. It’s all about Leadership or the lack thereof ….
Even if Bushs’ comment was not gaffed in delivery, it certainly was in conception.
In a brutalised society, only the toughest and meanest survive. The more delicate aspects of civil society don’t have much of a chance. Call it the Cambodia syndrome if you like – it’s much more likely to produce a Pol Pot than a Mandela.
Bush can take his share of the credit for the situation, but he rather generously gives it all to Saddam.
Patricg:
Its Bush and Cheney who should be sacked …. replacing THEM with Rice and Petraeus might be a good idea [but, sadly, unlikely to happen].
I’d like to give the President a ‘Where’s Mandela?’ children’s book, where you have to find the Mandela in a very crowded illustration of an Iraqi market scene, with hundreds of bustling stalls, insurgents, US troops, arms dealers, voters with purple thumbs, limbless bombing victims, etc…
“Even if Bushs’ comment was not gaffed in delivery, it certainly was in conception. In a brutalised society, only the toughest and meanest survive. The more delicate aspects of civil society don’t have much of a chance. Call it the Cambodia syndrome if you like – it’s much more likely to produce a Pol Pot than a Mandela.”
And so what was the apartheid regime of South Africa in say 1963? A stately pleasure dome? And yet it produced your man Mandela, rather than, oh, Pol Pot, if I follow you.
Have a seat next to Mr. Bush, please. The de-gaffer will see you both momentarily.
j-p-z,
That’s quite a breath taking leap from Apartheid SA to Cambodia.
Perahaps the carpet bombing of SA via B-52 has been erased from history……..
Michael — Either apartheid SA was a ‘brutalized society’ per your original requirements, in which case the eventual rise to prominence of a Mandela rather than a Pol Pot runs counter to your claim, and renders your argument spurious; or else Cambodia and apartheid SA exist on different and non-comparable planes of brutality (due to bombing or anything else you like), and then SA *wasn’t* a ‘brutalized society’ which, guess what, also renders your reasoning spurious.
Point is, either way, your reasoning won’t hold up. You’re the one who dragged Cambodia into what was already an intellectual fun-house.
Naturally a quarrel like this is utterly silly; but then this whole thread is silly. I imagine that’s precisely why people are having such a romp with it, though.
I apologise for being too subtle for you j_p_z, but I tend to give people credit for being able to perceive nuance.
I was giving Cambodia as an extreme example of the trend. Not every country with a violent history, eg SA, is just th esame
One of the funniest LP threads in ages, my mirth knows no bounds.
Adding to the hilarity, of course, is that the terrible earnest and oh-so-[i]nuanced and sophisticated[/i] leftists on this site are marching in lockstep on this issue… with the evil loons at Stormfront.
Like is as like does.
MarkL
canberra
Luckily the ‘rightists’ have such a diversity of views on the topic – must defend George W from the evil of ……..of being mocked.
Hilarity indeed.
Keep it coming MarkL et al.
The communicative repertoire of a competent language users include an array of tools that involve deliberate violations of conventional rationality.
Humor, irony, metaphor, metonym, hyperbole, and simple nonsense, to name but a few examples of the tools of a speaker or writer’s trade, allow them to achieve complex cognitive and social effects in the minds of their audience in ways that are difficult or impossible to paraphrase as propositions with identifiable truth conditions.
(erratum: “…of
acompetent language users…”)The fact remains that both the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun ran with the Bush-Mandela ‘gaffe’ story, with a combined Australian readership of more 500,000 Australians.
The same newspapers that employ Tim Blair and Andrew Bolt as prominent columnists. Neither the Telegraph or the Herald Sun have published corrections, or retractions, to this story. Blair can claim that the Daily Telegraph was just running a Reuters-sourced piece, but it had “By Staff Writers” under the headline. Bolt hits the Herald Sun journo with a wet lily and then rails against those evil, stupid Lefties.
Ignore the mainstream media, of which they are a part, rail against niche bloggers.
The reason why so many of the ‘flying monkeys’ still support Bush and the War On Iraq is because it did exactly what the NeoCons intended it to do – depopulate the country, sow chaos and disorder and push the US war industry budget beyond $500 billion a year.
Support a war that has led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and emptied the US Treasury, and you possess a clear and rational mind. Misread a Bush quote and you’re crazy and full of hate. Sure, that makes sense.
The Blairites and Bolters are so desperate for anything to distract them from the appalling carnage and horror of what they’ve supported in Iraq, that even a minor non-incident like the Bush-Mandela ‘gaffe’ gaffe sends them into a frothing frenzy.
Labor will be in office in Australia soon, and the Democrats will win the White House in 2008. A decade (more and less) of conservative rule in Australia and the US will be over, and then the Bolters and Blairites will have plenty of legitimate ‘Lefty’ chaos and madness to complain about.
Bolt and Blair might even then find their readerships rising, instead of following the American trend of Malkin and Little Green Footballs and plunging in the past year.
Interestingly, Bolt managed to cock up his comment on this piece by failing to read past the headline on one of the articles he linked to:
Reporters brain-dead? Most definitely. But “Leftist bloggers”? Not so much.
So it’s just LP, then?
This all seems to support the view that Bush is a shocker and altogether awful.
He is, has been and will continue to be an absolutely inadequate president.
I agree with all or most of Ptobias’ points made at 9:29am, but I fail to see how this is just another one of Bush’s gaffes. It is an oversimplified and obfuscatory argument, but that is stock standard in political speech, and something that any politician of any colour must master. His comments were, of course, figurative, and I understood immediately the point he was trying to make. I don’t see any evidence of stupidity here.
Ascribing reason to the sort of flying monkey commenters whose herd like behaviour was in evidence on this thread, after their master’s voice told them what to think, is something of a stretch, Darryl.
I am not a part of this herd of monkeys. None the less, I think this post is pathetic. It is quite clear what GW meant from the you tube video. This post is nothing more than a beatup.
Is it clear Damien??
Is George W really looking for someone to bring down the current US-backed Iraqi Govt.
Seems more like Bush was attempting to evade his own responsibilities for the current state of Iraq and instead sheet home the blame to the absence of a single unifying Iraqi figure.
Or in other words, it’s all their own fault.
Now, that is clear.
George Bush = best US President ever.
Okay, maybe not the best ever. But certainly in the top 10.
What POTUS meant to say, with his enormous gift for precognition, was…..
“I thought an interesting comment was made when somebody said to me, I heard somebody say, where’s Marceau ? Well, Marceau is dead, because Saddam Hussein killed all the Marceaus. He was a brutal tyrant that divided people up and split families, who never got to speak about it and people are recovering from this.”
…..and that’s that!
It is crystal clear that GW meant that Saddam had killed off allk of the people who might otentially have played a similar role to Nelson Mandella. If you are reading anything else into what he said in the linked you tube clip then you must be deliberately looking for something to which you can object. I am not a particlar fan of a number of the decisions taken by the US administration during GW’s presidency, but the depths to which some people will sink in an attenmpt to malign anything and everything to do with GW is pathetic. People over here are very ready to criticise the so called “wing buts” from the right. Indeed, there are times when they deserve criticism. But the behaviour of the left that is exhibited in some posts here is every bit as bad. Two recent examples of the sort of pathetic drivel that is produced by the left are this post and the earlier post on the use of the term pumpkin to refer to the unfortunate three year old child who was abandoned at Southern Cross railway station after her name had apparentyly been discovered.
Micheal, I am guessing that you are taking the comment towards the end of the clip about “GW not giving them a pass when it comes to reconciliation” and combining that with a generally held, and perhaps correct, suspicion that the US is looking for an excuse to withdraw its troops to interpret GW as saying “its all the Iraqi’s fault”. That is one of the possible reasonable interpretations, although probably not the only one. Nonetheless, it was not the focus of this post. I think their is room for a debate about whether the US and its allies should stay or withdraw. In support of staying is the general argument that since the US and its allies contributed to the current situation, they should stay and attempt to fix it. In support of leaving is the argument that many of the current problems might well be caused by the presence of armed forces from the US and their allies. If the US leave, the rationale that the terorrists are using to support their actions, namely that they are opposing an occupying force, disappears.
Michael, for the reasons outlined in my previous comment, I apologise for suggesting that you must have been deliberately looking for something to which you could object in my previous comment. However, once again, I note that the focus of this post is on what is clearly a mis-interpretation of GW’s comment concerning the absence of Nelson Mandella like figures in Iraq. It is very difficult to believe that these mis-interpretations are not deliberate. As such, the mis-interpretations are pathetic.
Thread closed for the evening.
Edited to add: Opened again now – Moderator
Damien,
It’s a bit of a stretch to use the excuse that Saddam “killed all the Mandelas”. Even after so many years of Saddams rule, there remained remained plenty of opposition to him within Iraq.
If Bushs’ contention were true, then in the absence of Saddam the situation should be improving, or at least stable, but it’s been getting worse.
The ‘Mandela’ analogy was a clumsy and bungled attempt at excuse making.
Bushs’ war is killing and displacing the ‘Mandela’s’ still, but you won’t hear him lament that.
Oh, FFS, this is like some sort of grisly car-wreck that you just can’t look away from.
“Even after so many years of Saddams rule, there remained remained plenty of opposition to him within Iraq. If Bushs’ contention were true, then in the absence of Saddam the situation should be improving, or at least stable, but it’s been getting worse.”
Dear Master of Nuance: when the ANC finally came to power in South Africa, it had a massive black-African majority in a country with severe historical grievances against the brutality that had been visited upon them by the apartheid regime run by minority whites. (ANALOGY ALERT: black/white. Shi’a/Sunni. Do try and do SOME of the math…)
Considering the circumstances, many observers had expected, in the wake of majority-black rule, a vengeful bloodthirsty episode of ethnic cleansing and terrorist massacres, which are after all not unknown in Africa, against the minority whites (ANALOGY ALERT: Such as we see in post-Saddam Iraq.) However, this did not happen. Instead, the power transfer was largely peaceful, and the ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ commissions, spearheaded, one imagines, by the political visionary Mandela, both anticipated and prevented blood-vengeance on a scale that would have been incredibly self-destructive (ANALOGY ALERT: as in Iraq) and damaging to the long-term prospects of all South Africans. (ANALOGY ALERT: Is any of this sinking in?)
Mandela’s enduring legacy is not having sat in prison for decades; it is in having successfully negotiated an unbelievably difficult hairpin turn in the emotional, political, and historical development of his country. It is in having skillfully avoided a much-anticipated racial civil war and bloodbath when the political fortunes of his country changed. WHICH IS NOT WHAT HAPPENED IN IRAQ. That is what Bush was referring to, because the people of Iraq have not been able to restrain themselves from the sorts of violence that SA avoided. The US it is true is grossly at fault for not having taken more competent steps to mitigate this much-anticipated violence; NEVERTHELESS, the fate of Iraq ultimately rests in the hands of Iraqis; it never has been, and indeed cannot be, any other way. Which again is what Bush was talking about.
Jaysus we are talking to a bunch of brick walls here.
Mostly delicately put Japerz.
Indeed, Mandela did convince the ANC to commit itself to an act of self-denial in accepting the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. this act ofself-denial was unique, so far as I know, in human history. It was truly a remarkable feat of humanity and statesmanship. Never before have victors been so generous to their erstwhile oppressors.
And it is true that there was no powerful voice in Iraq calling for such reconciliation. Iraq divided gleefully along ethno-religious lines as soon as it could. This should have been expected by the Bushies.
But let’s dig a little deeper into the Mandela phenomenon to discover whether the most Pollyannaish Bushie could have expected such a figure and such a mood for reconciliation to emerge in Iraq.
Mandela imbibed secularist egalitarianism in his education and in his association with the ANC. In that sense, he was an heir to western enlightenment thinking, the kind of thinking that drove the American Revolution and every great reform in governance and social thinking ever since. The grim Calvinism of Apartheid was puny against such a force.
Contrariwise, in Iraq, secular egalitarianism never took root. Ba’athism is secularist, but deeply inegalitarian. Other parties were puny. In other words, Saddam didn’t have to kill any (metaphorical) Iraqi Nelson Mandelas. He didn’t have to kill them because they were never born. Saddam’s opponents based their opposition to Saddam not on secularist, egalitarian grounds, but on grounds of exceptionalism and their own versions of manifest destiny.
Thus to return to Bush’s cack-handed Mandela metaphor. To the extent it makes any sense at all it is based on a laughably inadequate misreading of the history of Iraq.
If such thinking did drive US policy in Iraq it displays the depths of the poverty of Bushite understanding of the world.
More likely, however, is that Bush’s Mandela rhetoric is a post hoc rationalisation for the cumulative failures of his woefully inadequate regime.
This is a little surprising because when it comes to a belief in exceptionalism and manifest destiny, Bush is in the very forefront.
Katz, the Iraqi Communist Party could be seen as a secular and egalitarian force.
True, but it was puny.
Even under the relatively benign regime of Qasim (1958-1963) the Party attracted fewer than 30,000 members.
Earlier, British interests were happy to see the party repressed.
And under Saddam, the US applauded Saddam’s persecution of Communists as a theatre of the Cold War in the strategically vital Middle East.
Therefore the fate of the Iraqi Communist Party serves to prove my point.
Katz, a lot of what you’re saying is of course true (and there’s many other clear ways in which SA and Iraq are of course not at all comparable, which one could enumerate, given the leisure); nonetheless much of your argument, like most arguments on this thread, also has little practical bearing on the conduct of the present troubles.
Consider (which I think Cliff alone of all the commenters on this thread to date has noticed) that Bush is not a grad student in ME history, he is a politician trying to peddle an unpopular line in the face of opposition that is sometimes stiff and often preposterous. What he says in a speech is not a doctoral dissertation to be defended; it is a policy, one which for diverse highly debatable reasons he and his advisors think to be best; a policy to be defended, against people many of whom have still less of a clue than he has. I think it is a rather sour note indeed for American democracy that the level of discourse over such a vital matter is this dishonest and retarded, but still, here we all are. (And you won’t *believe* who *I* blame for it.)
A second matter to consider is even more germane, but has crept into the background: the war was undertaken not as an experiment in social work, despite the absurd salesmanship we’ve all had to sit through; it was undertaken in the interests of US national security in the wake of egregious acts of war which had the ability to be replicated many times over if action was not taken. (As it happens, I think the war was the wrong thing to do IN THAT LIGHT, but I was not in charge, so again, here we all are.) Viewed in this way (and again I’m not talking about ‘justice’ but what’s on our plate at present) there’s a certain hierarchy of preferred outcomes, most of which include a peaceful stable Iraq; but these were not the primary goals, just as the prosperity of the Toyota Motor Co. turns out to be nice, but was not the goal of war with Japan. It no longer matters, from a certain standpoint, whether this war was wise, unwise, or otherwise; it’s happened, for good or for ill, and now it has to be mitigated and managed to the optimal outcome. Nursing illusions about these things was partly what led us to this pass. Nursing further illusions about it is not likely to help.
Amen to that.
We all agree that the present predicament is that Bush has the Iraqi tiger by the tail.
I think we agree that the tiger is growing more obstreperous.
I think we also agree that the US is incapable of hanging onto that tail for much longer. Bush hopes he can hang onto it until the White House door hits him on the arse for the last time, in Jan 2009.
I think we agree that bush can’t kill the tiger.
I think we agree, therefore, that Bush’s successor will have to let go.
How can Bush and his successor influence the behaviour of the tiger once heis released?
Can Bush both tug the tiger by the tail and reduce its anger? I think not, however, I’m willing to listen to arguments against my assumption.
But here is something that US voters and citizens might think about. Whose interests is Bush promoting by refusing to let go? This morning Amnesty International reported that there are more than 4.2 million Iraqi refugees, overwhelmingly Sunni, who have fled Iraq since the US invasion. This is the work of the tiger whose tail Bush even now grasps.
Is this what you Americans want from the expenditure of your blood and treasure?
This is a question for the future, not one about the past.
Michael,
It appears that you agree with me that it is perfectly clear what Bush was saying. You simply disagree with the accuracy of the claim that Saddam killed off all of the people who could have played the role of Nelson Mandella. I am perfectly happy to agree that their is room for debate on the accuracy of this claim. In fact, I do not know whether it is true or not. I am no fan of the war. I think the original invasion was incredibly misguided and I am starting to wonder whether or not the Iraqis would be better off if the US and its allies simply pulled out. But the accuracy of the statement is irrelevant to the point I was making. The original post did not question the accuracy of the statement. Instead it deliberately misinterpreted the statement in an attempt to ridicule GW. This is the sense in which it was pathetic.
Oil according to Al Greenspan.
Not primarily the actual stuff itself of course, but what comes from controlling a significant source of it.
Can we just all agree that Bush is a giant knob who frequently makes ridiculous statements, has no sense of history, and has comprehensively rooted his ‘Mission Accomplished’?
Katz, you said
Yes indeed.
Prior to the Truth & Reconcilliation Commission [ which heard what happened from BOTH sides in the conflict], Nelson Mandela was merely well-known, someone who could be held up as their own hero by followers of all sorts of causes and movements: a bit like Ned Kelly, Josef Stalin, Al Capone, Adolf Hitler, John Kemnnedy, Che Guevarra, etc., etc, and soon like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin-Laden. However, it was the Truth & Reconcilliation Commission, not his earlier actions nor his long imprisonment, that put Mandela on such a high pedestal.
Nothing in his previous statements on international affairs gave me any confidence at all tnat Bush actually had much understanding of who Mandela is or what he stood for.
Think of all the lives that would have been saved if there had been a Truth & Reconcilliation Commission in Iraq immediately after the Invasion …. not as exciting as shooting or degrading Iraqis or blowing up Americans and their followers perhaps but a darned sight more useful.
Yes GB.
I made a similar statement in July 2006, before Saddam’s execution, over at Quiggin:
I also suggested then that:
Naturally, the usual Flying Monkey suspects questioned my sanity and/or my loyalty.
I believe that time has been unkind to the Soaring Simians.
Indeed, Katz. Which is why I suggested by implication earlier in the thread in response to Darryl that not even they (or I dare say, Tim Blair) believe that there is “good news from Iraq” to be told anymore.
Why is there not a single right wing blog in Australia that engages with Australian politics? Why do they only specialise in climate change denialism, Islamophobia and attempts at “gotcha” moments vis-a-vis the left? I ask these questions rhetorically, but unless anyone believes that “the answer is Liberal”, the answer ought to be obvious.
I don’t believe for a second the faux confected outrage of the flying monkey commenters about this post is genuine. All their “faith based” crap has crumbled into dust, and they’re reduced to straight out vulgar and offensive abuse against demons of their own imagination.
In so many ways, the world has moved on.
When Howard goes, the rest of their “reality” will crumble over night. It will be interesting to see how they deal.
Perhaps they’ll have to come to terms with the fact that spending your leisure time hurling bile filled insults on blogs is the mark of a sad fucking loser with no life whatsoever.
The thing I found amusing was that LP was accused of being on its own in being unable to see the brilliance of their ludicrous interpretation of Bush’s words when blogs and newspapers all over the world saw things differently to the rabid right’s narrow pedantic view.
Steve, I’d give you a logical and factual rebuttal, but it wouldn’t pass moderation. LP doesn’t like that sort of thing.
BTW, Tim Blair has a whole thread on this that you can contribute to without worrying about your comments being pre-approved, edited, or deleted.
(Let’s see if THAT gets through…)
And, as we have since discovered, Mandela was down the back of the sofa the whole time.
So now I guess we wait for the “logical and factual” rebuttal from Dave S, author of this little logical and factual gem over on that other thread where you don’t need to worry about your comments being pre-approved, edited or deleted:
To finish, I’ll quote the last paragraph of the FAQ page I linked to:
“Perhaps (the flying monkeys will) have to come to terms with the fact that spending your leisure time hurling bile filled insults on blogs is the mark of a sad fucking loser with no life whatsoever.”
Rock on, Mark. Rock On.
“Perhaps they’ll have to come to terms with the fact that spending your leisure time hurling bile filled insults on blogs is the mark of a sad fucking loser with no life whatsoever.”
Talking about yourself again Mark. Have a look in the mirror!
You see, Rafe is rubber and Mark is glue!
What a pity Rafe forgot to tell us the Good News from Iraq when he took the trouble to drop by.
And on that note this thread ends.