Holy fracking mother of all newspapers — did The Guardian just seem to call for assignation of our President? Are these jackasses joking or is there and element of seriousness there?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,,1333748,00.html
*assassination
I liked assignation better. 
New whisper campaign: Bush has been boinking Condi!
Ummm - Maybe The Guardian will take them both out — but first the warning - bed and bloody horse head style -
The offending quote comes from the entertainment section of the Guardian, and is from a lightweight TV critic.
A previous column by the same critic ends as follows, which should indicate the degree of weight to give to such a column:
“The performance artists are up their own arses. But at least they’re not up other people’s, like these two crotch-sniffing hags.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguide/columnists/story/0,14669,1307200,00.html
The “Entertainment Section?” –
OK, I suppose they’re just witless jackasses.
Sure, but The Guardian still saw fit to print it, no? They could have excerisized unprecented editorial powers and said something like, ‘Well, maybe no articles calling for the assassination of the President’ or something, but they chose to include the article.
Of course, many poetential assassins take their cue from the Guardian’ TV column, so there’s a very real chance that this comment could be taken seriously.
Oh, wait you do think it was serious :wally
Whoops, confused at too which forum I was in. I would like to withdraw the putz smilie from my previous post.
The guy who made the assassination comment is Charlie Brooker, a humorist who is exceptionally foul-mouthed and angry. His calls for assassination or for people to drop dead are extended towards lots of people, most of them British. This is his site for context (SFW but full of foul language).
People who read his column already know this about him. You’re reading too much into it.
Here’s another Charlie Brooker project - Unnovations - a catalogue of horrible, useless, or disturbing inventions, of which my favourite is the Baker Infuriating Hat. Genius.
Ah, it was a lighthearted, wistful even, call for assassination. Silly me. :rolleyes:
The Guardian chose to print it, and even if it is a case of ‘journalistic’ (if said word can even be applied to The Guardian) trolling rather than a proper fatwah, it is incredibly inappropriate.
Ya, sure.
This illustrates one of the problems with online versions of print media, by the way. The article on screen appears different than it would tucked away in its proper place in the little pullout bit in the centre of the Guardian that, when I buy the paper, I don’t usually bother reading.
In other words, nowhere near the serious news and certainly nowhere near the editorial or serious opinion.
It also illustrates one of the problems in allowing Americans access to British humour…
No, a “foul-mouthed and angry” call for assassination, as I said.
It would only be trolling if it was meant to be taken seriously. It isn’t.
One might conclude that anyone who chooses to take it as serious ‘journalistic’ political comment, especially after having been told that it isn’t, is being deliberately obtuse. Sure, criticise it, but criticise it for what it is, not what it isn’t.
Ah yes, I suppose somee here are right, that IS “humor.” The sort found in most top rate newspapers like The Guardian ----- I’m certain lots of Americans will just ‘bust a gut’ if given a chance to read this new Oscar Wilde of British humor.
Hey, here’s a thought — maybe Charlie Booker, the article’s author, might hire a Jeffery Dahmer type to baby-sit his kids. Then write about that and the resulting 28 packages of frozen irony. Spaghetti anyone? Now THAT’S humor!!
No wait – THAT’s extremely bad taste -
I have no problem in people finding Brooker unfunny and in poor taste. The boundaries of humour and taste are subjective - see Billy Connolly’s comments about Ken Bigley.
I do, however, object to people pretending what he writes is an example of Guardian journalism, and getting up on their high horses about it. For comparison, here’s Charlie Brooker on British soccer fans (spoilered due to extremely bad language and violent content):
Do you like football? Do you like discussing football? Do you visit pubs to watch football on a big floppy screen? Do you sit in train carriages reading the Sun sports section, looking for all the world like a bloated, flabby-armed pig who’s somehow learned to read? Have you ever stopped to think about what a thick cunt you’re being? You really are, you know; you’re a big thick cunt. A big, thick boring fucking cunt. Here’s an idea: next time you’re tempted to start yet another boring fucking conversation about boring fucking football, why don’t you poke one of your eyes out with your thumb instead? And then really scrape around the back of the socket with your thumbnail? With any luck it’ll shock your thick cunt boring fucking football-liking fucking friends into discussing something more pressing than football for once – they could talk about calling an ambulance, say, or maybe just hold an impormptu debate about whether the eye you just pushed out of your head was still able to send visual signals to your brain as it oozed down your cheek. Or maybe they’ll stand around grunting about football, as usual.
There are plenty of examples of idiotic Guardian partisanship, such as the letter-writing campaign of the OP, but this isn’t one of them.
I COULD trash the Guardian and its writers, but that would be too easy. Instead of calling them all kinds of names, I’ll simply ask: what makes them think their appeals could POSSIBLY have a positive impact on “swing” voters?
A “swing” voter, by definition, sees pluses and minuses to voting for either Bush or Kerry. in Ohio, such a voter might be…
a) A religious, patriotic blue-collar worker who agrees with Bush on most of the social issues, but worries about his job and the state of the economy, and thinks Kerry might be better for his pocketbook.
b) A suburban businessman who’s liberal on most of the social issues (his wife is on the local Planned Parenthood Board, and his daughter volunteers for Greenpeace), but who likes low taxes.
c) A housewife who thinks Kerry would be better for the economy and the environment, but who wants a strong leader like George W. Bush to protect our national security.
Now, Democrats in America are working very hard to push people like these over to their side, and Republicans are trying to do the same. We’ll see in November which side does better. But does ANYONE at the Guardian think ANY of the people I’ve described would be favorably impressed by an appeal from them? NO!!! And it’s not just because Americans in general resent advice from abroad. It’s because all three of the sterotypical “swing” voters I’ve described would find the Guardian a repulsive publication!
The smug, antireligious nature of the Guardian would make it anathema to voters A & C, while the Guardian’s Bolshevik economic stances would make it repugnant to Voter B! In short, an appeal from the Guardian, of all publications, would not only fail to sway swing voters to Kerry’s side, it would almost assuredly push them to Bush’s.
There may be people who can present those swing voters with cogent reasons to vote for Kerry, but the idea that Richard Dawkins or someone like him could do it is so STUPID… well, it’s such a stupid notion that only an intellectual could have taken it seriously.
The real bottom-line question, of course, is who in the U.S. is reading The Guardian? I’d be quite astonished if more than a few thousand citizens ever even see it. So, what’s printed in there is a non-issue when it comes to the U.S. election.
Bolshevik? Either you’ve never read the Guardian, or you have no idea what a Bolshevik is. I can’t say I’ve ever noticed anything antireligious either, care to enlighten us?
It is some measure of my view of the Guardian that one of the first things I read is the Corrections and Clarifications column to see what they’ve screwed up recently. Busiest Corrections Editor in the biz, or so they claim. If they didn’t have the best arts jobs listing in the Monday papers, I’d never buy the rag.
Mind you, it’s not like any of the other papers are worth reading.