Twas All In Good Fun

Adam 3000

Now that WMD are almost certainly non-existent in Iraq, it looks like Bush is trying to use humour to deflect criticism:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2027&ncid=2027&e=6&u=/chitribts/20040326/ts_chicagotrib/bushcriticizedforgagsaboutweaponssearch

Democratic critics and some family members of soldiers serving in Iraq took President Bush to task Thursday for his jokes at a black-tie dinner about the fruitless search for weapons of mass destruction.

The jokes came at Wednesday night's annual Radio and Television Correspondents Association dinner. In a 10-minute, mostly puckish, self-deprecating speech, the president presented a slide show he called "an election year, White House photo album."


In several photos, he appeared to be searching the Oval Office. A photo of Bush looking under a piece of furniture was flashed on the large projection screens in the ballroom.


"Those weapons of mass destruction got to be here somewhere," Bush said in his narration, drawing laughter from the audience of journalists, politicians, government workers and other guests.


Another photo showed him looking through a window. "Nope, no weapons over there," the president said.

What strikes me is that not only is Bush a terrible Leader, politician and human being, hes also a terrible comedian too

(p.s., On the side of that, is it just me or is Yahoo! very left-wing in its news... it seems to make little digs at Bush were it can... not that he doesnt deserve them, but i would have expected it, like most US media, to be more Republican-friendly... well, at least one major media outlet is on the right side )

MeatProduct

I'd have real difficulty believing that to be honest. I know Bush is a stupid man, he must have an IQ of 80 or so, but he can't be that stupid! Really, how would his adminisration let him do that?

If it is true then bravo to Yahoo for covering it!

Nick

Redleslie

And to think I was once one of those people who used to insist that no one who gets into the White House is a total fool.

Adam 3000

it may not be true, but it has quotes from some Democrat and Republican officials condeming/defending it.... so maybe it is... i'll check for a different source

[edit] here we go.. the BBC covered it too:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3570845.stm
while Yahoo arent the best reporters going, id certainly believe the BBC

MeatProduct

Wow, so he actually is mentally retarded then. Pretty impressive when he controls the biggest collection of WMDs in the world.

Nick

Edit: I'm sure that action creates a nice warm feeling in the hearts of the families in Iraq who have lost loved ones. Especially so since their loved ones were killed because of these very same WMDs that Bush couldn't find in his office. It is really a sign of how much of a puppet society really is to allow this man to stay in power.

That the reporters and other individuals there laughed at this just goes to show how serious they take the whole issue. Disgusting.

daveirl

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Adam 3000

forgetting about taste and whatnot (which politicians shouldnt ever do) it wasnt even a good joke.

And WMD was the main justification for the US to go to war, had they not claimed Iraq had them then they would have had no support, and joking about any reasons for going to war is in bad taste, no matter how small that reason was.

Memnoch

bah there never were any WMD to be found, Bush new this, Blair new this. It was all propaganda that idiots fell for as they always do... I remember in the days running up to the war, when the whole debate started. I remember sitting in a bus with my girlfriend, and telling her, that it was all BS, it was all propaganda, there weren't any WMD to find in Iraq.

Sadly, being right in this case doesn't make me happy, because they still had their war, they still comitted mass murder and got away with it... still too many ignorant people who buy their propaganda, its always going to be this way.........

rde

If I may interject here with a couple of points...

1. The Correspondents' Dinner is held every year, and every year the sitting president does his little comedy routine. This one was no worse than a few others I've seen (remember Clinton making a packed lunch for Hillary?). Most it was covered live on a couple of news channels (betraying here the fact that I was watching the news at 3am), and while it wasn't hilarious, it wasn't terrible, either.

2. The democrats are just picking on the speech because they can, showing that they're just as capable as the republicans of pious sanctimony.

3. Referring to Bush as an idiot is (in this case) inappropriate; you don't seriously think he did all this himself, do you? A whole team of people worked on that, and the thought that went into each word is probably worthy of a haiku master. It was Bush's (or more accurately, his team's) way of dealing with the criticism in a 'see? we're aware of your nit-picking, and we're not worried' kind of way.

Adam 3000

Memnoch, i totally agree with you, i never believed it all, knew that, just like everything Saddam had to say, it was propoganda

rde, i know that this dinner is held every year, and its the routine for the president to make afew jokes, usually about himself. However, I dont think that poking fun at the debate that has cost countless lives is appropriate. Its tasteless. You can say that they had their spin on it, and maybe they did, the fact is they made light of a very serious situation. Why didnt he talk about his near death experience with a pretzal, or his monkey features? they would have been just as apt, and more funny. I didnt see it on any major news channels, but so what if it was? My case is with the story, not who told us about it (or didnt).
yes, its true that the democrats can sling mud just as well as the republicans can... its the way American politics seems to work nowadays, "rather than tell you what im gonna do, Im gonna tell you all the bad things hes gonna do/has done."
And i know that Bush has his team working on speeches, but whoever has a hand in this is also an idiot. There is plenty to joke about, if your in that kind of mood, but as i said before, he made light of a very serious topic, one that pushed the war in Iraq from fantasy to reality (i say so because there is no way he would have had British support without the WMD claim, and probably not that from others).

Oh, and humour is a matter of opinion, this IMO was a terrible joke, and to top it all off, in terrible taste.

rde

However, I dont think that poking fun at the debate that has cost countless lives is appropriate. Its tasteless

My point - which perhaps I didn't make clearly - was that the 'joke' was in there deliberately; not as a joke, but as a vote-getter. It was a (somewhat ham-fisted) way of negating the criticism. Given the absolute absence of WMD, the Bushies have only three options; 'fess up, make up the evidence or pretend it doesn't matter, that the Iraq war was justified on other grounds. It's this last option they (inevitably) took, and this was just one more component in that strategy. Taste is dictated solely by how it'll affect voting patterns; if they reckon that they'll mortally offend ten thousand people but ultimately convince 10,001 to vote for them, it'll be worth the effort, especially if a lot of those 10,000 wouldn't vote for him in the first place.

alleepally

rde, you've been watching too much of the West Wing.

Adam 3000

ok, i see your point rde, basically they are now playing down the WMD claim, in a kind of ignoring what they said before as if it never happened, and pretend they were more commited to other aspects of going to war?

I still think that its tasteless, and things are still abit raw to try and joke about it (given that people are still fighting in Iraq).
Im not aiming this at you rde, btw, but i wonder why they just dont take the political route in this attempt rather than joke it off... i think a half assed job at seriously covering their asses would look better than joking about it... its like if he blows up something, but says 'oops' in a silly voice afterwards, then its ok.

then again, if you saw the rumsfeld video where hes crucified by CBS when he tries to say Iraq was not an immintent threat and they quote him as saying otherwise, perhaps this was 'plan b'

daveirl

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Sparks

Originally posted by daveirl
True Tony Blair did make WMDs the be all and end all of his reasons to go to war with Iraq, but GWB didn't. This fact seems to have been forgotten by a lot of people. I'm not saying that it's write but I'm saying that he did give more reasons.

From Iraq on the Record. These are all quotes from before the war, made by Bush:

"But the risk of doing nothing, the risk of the security of this country being jeopardized at the hands of a madman with weapons of mass destruction far exceeds the risks of any action we may be forced to take."

"Today the world is also uniting to answer the unique and urgent threat posed by Iraq. A dictator who has used weapons of mass destruction on his own people must not be allowed to produce or possess those weapons. We will not permit Saddam Hussein to blackmail and/or terrorize nations which love freedom."

"Saddam Hussein is a man who told the world he wouldn't have weapons of mass destruction, but he's got them . . . . And not only that, [he would] like nothing more than to hook up with one of these shadowy terrorist networks like Al Qaeda, provide some weapons and training to them, let them come do his dirty work, and we wouldn't be able to see his fingerprints on his action."

"The regime . . . has aided, trained and harbored terrorists, including operatives of al Qaeda. The danger is clear: using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons, obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country, or any other."

"One of the greatest dangers we face is that weapons of mass destruction might be passed to terrorists who would not hesitate to use those weapons. Saddam Hussein has longstanding, direct and continuing ties to terrorist networks. Senior members of Iraq intelligence and al Qaeda have met at least eight times since the early 1990s. Iraq has sent bomb-making and document forgery experts to work with al Qaeda. Iraq has also provided al Qaeda with chemical and biological weapons training. And an al Qaeda operative was sent to Iraq several times in the late 1990s for help in aquiring poisons and gases. We also know that Iraq is harboring a terrorist network headed by a senior al Qaeda terrorist planner."

"All the world has now seen the footage of an Iraqi Mirage aircraft with a fuel tank modified to spray biological agents over wide areas. Iraq has developed spray devices that could be used on unmanned aerial vehicals with ranges far beyond what is permitted by the Security Council. A UAV launched from a vessel off the American coast could reach hundreds of miles inland."

And if you take speeches by the general White House administration you get even more. A brief selection:

Rumsfeld:
"With each passing day, Saddam Hussein advances his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and could pass them along to terrorists. If he is allowed to do so, the result could be the deaths not of 3,000 people, as on September 11th, but of 30,000, or 300,000 or more innocent people."

"QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, today in a broadcast interview Saddam Hussein said: "There is only one truth, Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever." And he went on to say, "I would like to tell you directly we have no relationship with Al Qaida." SECRETARY RUMSFELD: And Abraham Lincoln was short."

"We do know that the Iraqi regime has chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction."

Cheney:

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us."

daveirl

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