AmericanMaid, not only were you wrong on the two counts pointed out by Scarlett67, you also apparently didn’t read your own link. President Nelson Mandela used the same exact phrase in his Inaugural Address. Is he an idiot too? :rolleyes:
OK so he has this habit nowadays which is quite unpresidential, and I know it’s probably nothing in the grand scheme of things, but it bugs me every goddam time I see him do it, and there’s no question in my mind that it’s a metaphor for something larger.
Here it is: when he’s at the podium speaking, he tends to slouch over it; his entire frame cocked to one side, and with one elbow on the podium. Like he was leaning on a bar.
I think of it more as being “anti-backwards-ignorant-fuckist”. 
This was pointed out in another thread, and I haven’t been able to get over it. So, since this is a catch-all pitting, I’ll toss it in.
His face is too small for his head.
There. I said it. I never really noticed it before, but now it’s all I see.
This blows my mind. The questions he was to answer were SUBMITTED IN ADVANCE. As requested by the President, as apparently is their quiet SOP. And yet Bush:
- pretended to be flustered by the questions
- apparently was then sincerely flustered when the reporter was irritated that, having submitted her questions in advance, he was still avoiding answering them directly, as she had come to expect from politicians in her country, where they are actually expected to answer real questions, not dodge them
RTA, I’ve noticed that, too.
As well as his manner, lately since his justifications for invading Iraq have started crumbling one by one. Haven’t you noticed a sort of desperation in his manner, like he’s trying to convince or scold a child? He gets a very lecturing, almost angry tone in his voice, but his eyebrows raise and his forehead wrinkles like he’s still trying to convince you, and then he finishes with a smirk like he’s just said something smart.
But he hasn’t. It’s his tell.
Whenever he’s bluffing, bullshitting us, reciting the party spin that he knows is a bunch of crap, he gets that manner. And he’s had it more and more lately. It’s a look of desparation, as if he’s frustrated that you aren’t just buying his line unquestioningly, but he doesn’t have any additional convicing arguments to back it up. Just sound bites.
The last time I saw it on TV was a couple days ago. He was asked what he thought the differences were between Edwards and Cheney, and his response was, “Dick Cheney can be president.”
Yea, well the last Republican president thought that Dan Quayle could be president, so that’s not saying much, George.
And I’d really love to watch that Coleman interview, but can’t find it. I’ve read the transcript, but can’t get the video to play.
Exactly. Such as when he was questioned about the 9/11 commissions findings re: al Quada and Iraq. Paraphrasing from memory: “I said there was a connection between al Quada and Iraq because there was a connection between al Quada and Iraq!”
Or when he was being questioned about Abu Ghraib, and he said something along the lines of “I authorized them to stay within US law. That oughta satisfy you.”
At times he reminds me of the chain smoking novelty manufacturer in the spoof 60 minutes hotseat played by Martin Short, who looks incredulously into the camera, sweating like a pig, asking “Is it me? It’s him, right?”
But mostly he strikes me like a petulant toddler.
One has to be intelligent enough to keep reading after you find the little bit of info that you think, for just a second, backs up your argument.
As Zakalwe has already pointed out, there were lots and lots of people in this ‘no-trespassing’ area.
Skipping past the bullshit of being somehow able to ‘trespass’ at a public speech by a public official (if a public official is giving a speech, is it somehow open to some but not all of the public? Fuck-all if there isn’t an obvious answer for that), how can one possibly distinguish the trespassers from the non-trespassers?
You read down, and it seems there were these tickets:
Nobody ever says that the Ranks didn’t have tickets, and the context suggests they must’ve: how could they have gained admittance to the restricted area without the tickets? (And if it wasn’t a restricted area, what use would tickets have been in controlling the crowd?)
At any rate, the officials haven’t indicated the manner of their trespass, and they haven’t claimed that the Ranks had engaged in any sort of disorderly conduct or other rules violation, just that they were trespassing. But how they were identified as trespassers is completely unclear.
Other than their T-shirts, of course.
I don’t know about this. I mean, at functions open to the public, there can still be restricted areas, right? Sectioned off with that stupid yellow tape?
And if the President is giving a speech, there are always gonna be *several * areas that the general public is not gonna have access to that day. Some for management reasons, some for security reasons, some for safety reasons.
All I’m saying is that the story may not be telling the whole story.
Well, yeah. And if a member of the general public tried to go in one of those, they’d be arrested for trespassing.
But the thing is, there have been three or four stories about this incident now. And in none of them have the cops simply said, “these guys tried to get into the secure area, so we arrested them.”
Anyhow, found another AP story:
So: they had tickets; the problem, according to the Charleston police spokesman, seems to have been entirely with their T-shirts.
If you guys remember correctly, Bush and his freedom-loving fucking cronies have now set up “protest zones” wherein your free speech is actually free. If these two were wearing their T-shirts out of that area, they were trespassing.
What a joke. I weep for our lost liberties.
Sam
Oh please. If they were so proud about boldly protesting Bush, why did they hide that fact from the authorities and keep their idiotic anti-Bush t-shirts away from view? Because they are cowardly morons, and would rather “make a big splash” than protest legally? Those in the crowd came to see and hear the President…not some moronic protesters who are just there to raise a stink.
Your freedom of speech isn’t being taken away. You have the right to say whatever you want (except “Fire” in a crowded theater), but you do not have the right to a captive audience. This is the same stupidity used by people who get angry at Wal-Mart for refusing to sell explicit CDs. These musicians have the right to be heard. But Wal-Mart has the right to sell (or not sell) whatever products they want.
Protest zones are commonly used because there are some protesters who don’t even make an attempt at being non-violent or assembling peacefully. Many of these “activists” have no life and no job except to stir up trouble. They are just bored anarchists who show up to protest, not with signs and bullhorns, but with masks to protect them from tear gas when their protests inevitably get out of control and turn into a riot when they start destroying property, blocking traffic, etc.
Even the DNC, that bastion of progressive thinking who would never even THINK of trampling on protesters’ precious rights, use protest zones.
If you want to blame the practice of “protest zones” being started, start with the Reno “Justice” Department and Democrat Congress, who were behind the ridiculously stupid “Access to Clinics” act criminalizing peaceful anti-abortion protests, laying the groundwork for arresting anyone in the vicinity of left-wing demonstrations with the same physical violence that characterized arrest of peaceful pro-life demonstrators.
99% of Farenheit 911 was odiferous, bullshit spackled hogwash but when G.W. sat for 7 or 9 minutes or however long it was in the elementary classroom after being told the nation was under attack and didn’t issue an order, didn’t do anything other than sit there and fume… well, that more than anything else he’s done pisses me off to no end. If find it indefensable and, given the opportunity, I’d really like to be able to question him on it.
Homer: “NU-cu-lar. It’s pronounced NU-cu-lar.”
They weren’t “Protest[ing] legally”?? Explain. They had their tickets, and they were following the stated rules. In what manner was their presence or their actions illegal?
Exactly how were these folks demanding a ‘captive audience’? If I wear a Hawaiian shirt in the subway, did I just make the other subway riders the ‘captive audience’ of my Hawaiian shirt?
This isn’t an argument, it’s a load of fetid, steaming crap.
Wrong.
Actually, the likeness is between Wal-Mart (exercising their right to sell what they want to sell) and the ‘protesters’ (who were just exercising their right to wear what they wanted to wear, subject of course to the decency laws). And the likeness is between the people who get angry at Wal-Mart (who want WallyWorld to sell what they want it to sell) and the President (who wants the public at his public speeches as President to appear to consist only of his supporters).
Sounds like we should put Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al. in one; they don’t even make an attempt at being nonviolent, either.
Snarkiness aside, that’s not how America works. You can’t just go excluding people from attending public events because they might do something objectionable, based on nothing more than public officials’ dislike of their politics. What it’s called when you can do that is a “police state”.
Blah blah blah blah blah.
Hey, they shouldn’t be doing it either. Do two wrongs make a right? Sounds like it makes two wrongs. From your link:
I agree wholeheartedly with that judge.
Yeah, and that law gave the private citizens trying toaccess a legal business a right to, what - fifteen feet of clearance between them and the protesters? That law asked for just enough room to take the physical-intimidation factor out of the picture.
As for those ‘peaceful’ pro-life demonstrators, they quite often didn’t act all that peaceful - yelling in private citizens’ faces at point-blank range, waving signs at them as if trying to hit them with their signs, and so forth.
And the difference between a private person, one who has not sought out the public spotlight, trying to access an abortion clinic, and the President of the United States, who is the highest public official in the land, should be obvious even to a person of your intellect, or lack thereof. So you should expect that different standards of protester access might apply to one and the other - with greater access of protesters to the public official than the private citizen.
“Freedom of speech” doesn’t come with a clause that reads “…unless your speech will offend others who may hear it.”
The only thing the coule did wrong was that they didn’t subscribe to the Bush-lovin’ masturbatory groupthink around them – an act that, last I checked, was not a crime of any sort, despite how much Bush wishes it was.
Oh man, this is so true. I think if he would stand up straighter, it would at least make him look honest and straightforward. As it is, his posture is so crooked. It’s almost as if his body is trying to tell us something!
I wonder what that could be.
Alright, I have one. That god damn commercial! The one about Kerry being “pessimistic.” Please, by all means, badger the hell out of me if I am being ignorant but what in the world is that commercial even about? Bush puts a slant on some things so they make him look good, he then quotes Kerry as saying “That was the great depression”, and then says “We do not need pessimism for presidency” or whatever. That makes about as much sense as a lark in Goodwill! What in the world?!
Please explain this to me. I really want to believe that it was something that I clearly did not understand rather than me thinking it was Bush being Bush.
You thought the sights and sounds of September 11 were stinky hogwash?
You thought the pictures of the wounded, dying and dead American soldiers and Iraqi citizens was stinky hogwash?
You thought the scene of a father carrying his injured (or dead) son with wet pants was stinky hogwash?
You thought the scene of a child having his scalp sewn back on was stinky hogwash?
You thought the hospital interviews with the maimed soldiers, some missing limbs, were stinky hogwash?
You thought the scenes of a mother talking about her dead son were stinky hogwash?
You thought the scene of that same mother breaking down in front of the White House was stinky hogwash?
At least your priorities are straight. That was much more important than the injured, dying and dead people.
Although this pales in importance to what he has done with our country, I still think that one incident speaks very clearly as to what type of man he is.
When his 19 year old daughter had to have emergency surgery to remove her appendix shortly before Mr. Bush took office, instead of staying in Texas with her, he chose to go ON VACATION in Florida.
Yep, that’s Mr. Family Values for you.