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:
c’mon, those implying that Phil and others couldn’t see what Bush was attempting to convey are being disingenuous
Was Grace being disingenuous when she said:
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.
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