The Worst Moment of George W. Bush's Presidency

What was the worst moment of George W. Bush's presidency?

There's a question that can easily inflame people on both sides of the political fence, and those who sit quite squarely on that fence.

But what would you guess?

The 9/11 attacks which killed over 3,000 innocent people?

Launching a largely pointless war in Iraq, leading to the deaths of thousands of American and hundreds of British troops, plus resulting in an insurgency which left an unknown number of civilians dead and strengthened Iranian influence in Iraq and the entire region?

Not finding and bringing to justice Osama bin Laden, ostensibly the reason for which a (now) largely pointless war is being fought in Afghanistan, in which thousands of American and hundreds of British troops, not to mention scores of Dutch, French and German troops, have died?

Not seizing the moment adequately and allowing the most poisonous aspects of the Left to set the debate and agenda on events as diverse as Guantanamo Bay and Hurricane Katrina?

You'd think any of those were in with a good chance - but you'd be wrong.

It was when rapper and professional thug Kanye West said on national TV that he didn't think Bush cared about black people!

Of course. That's much worse than anything I mentioned above.

Can this please be the final nail in the coffin of the notion that Bush is in any way conservative?

Hat tip: View from the Right.

Richard Reid's Father on 'Obama the Merciful'

Richard Reid is a British-born Muslim convert currently serving life in a U.S. jail after trying to blow up a transatlantic jet with explosives hidden in his shoes.

His father has released a letter to the British press in which his son brands Obama as no better than Bush, insisting that the only difference between the two men is the fact that Bush 'was more open in his enmity towards Islam'.

Of course. I quite clearly remember Bush taking the opportunity of all eyes being upon him after 9/11 to declare that Islam, the religion in whose name 3,000 of his own citizens were slaughtered on their own soil, was 'a religion of peace, love and tolerance'.

Harsh words indeed.

Reid's father sounds almost as crazy as his son:

Robin, 59, who lives near Southampton, said: "They've censored part of the letter where he tells me the reason he is on hunger strike.

"But I know from earlier letters that all he ever does is study Islam - so he must be protesting about something to do with that.

"It must be because they are stopping him getting the materials like books he needs which is infringing his human rights."

He added: "I don't want my son to die. Islam is all he cares about, not himself.

"Personally, I don't agree with his view of Obama and I think he is a breath of fresh air after Bush. But he is right that we should be wary of any new president.

"I'm writing to tell him that he should have more faith in Obama, though. I haven't been allowed to visit all my son in jail and maybe my only hope of ever seeing him again is if someone merciful like Obama realises he's that just an idealist who never really wanted to kill anyone."

He said released the photo "so Richard does not get forgotten about and people hear what he has to say".

Mr Reid insisted: "I believe he deliberately made a hash of it on that plane and tried to get caught before he hurt anyone. If he had been serious, he'd have gone to the toilets to set off his bomb.

"He was convinced of his cause and sure that American policy under Bush was wrong - and he tried to make a dramatic statement. But I will never believe he was serious about killing anyone."

Reid has made it quite clear that his Islamic faith is fuelled by hatred and murderous intent, ranting about Bush against all facts and logic when Islamic hatred of America and the entire non-Muslim world is rooted deep.

Why should the prison authorities not prevent his studies on that basis?

To call a man who wanted to kill as many innocents as possible 'an idealist' is simply an insult.

What interests me is the fact that Robin Reid seems to think that Obama might somehow have some empathy with his son - where could he have got an idea like that?

As much as I dislike Obama and disagree with pretty much all he has said and done to date, I'm not sure even he would be brave enough to publicly show solidarity with Reid or his sordid cause.

Weekly News Round Up: 18th-24th January 2009

Some more telling stories from this week's UK newspapers.

Of course, the biggest story here this week was the inauguration of 'The One' as President of the United States. Apparently this was a bigger news event worldwide than the 11th of September 2001 attacks, which I think aptly demonstrates our priorities here in the West.

The headlines were largely predictable:
'Obama's inauguration lights a candle of hope - and its flame is being felt around the world', screamed the comments section of the oft-demonised Right-wing 'Daily Mail'.

If you type 'Obama' into the search engine of 'The Guardian', the staple of Britain's liberal-left, you get around 638 returns. Among them is this - a handy pictorial guide to 48 newspaper front pages from around the world, all showing Obama. Just in case you're not sick of the man's name yet or something.
A poem in his honour tops the best seller list, and words like 'revolution' and 'remade' are bandied about as if they have no negative connotations at all.

'The Sun' and 'The Mirror' went one better; the former labelled Wednesday's entire edition as a 'souvenir' of this historic event. The latter settled for a giant pull out section, featuring the piece-de-resistance in the centre - his huge, smiling face. I've got mine on my wall now.
Both of course were filled with the usual asinine rubbish; more nonsense about his 'stunning' waxwork (and you should see that mannequin take an oath), profiles of his family and his wife's dress sense.

Sadly the one thing that they all missed was the breaking story on just why everyone cares this much. Ah well. At least we won't be taking any of the released Guantanamo Bay inmates.

I did feel sorry for Bush when he was jeered by the oh-so-mature fans of 'hope', 'change' and 'unity', but I suppose at least he doesn't have to take abuse for a living anymore. I have a feeling history will be kinder to him than is currently expected.

Because after all, Mr - sorry, President Obama now has to live up to all that hype. The media can smooth the way up to a point, but even then I'd say it will prove a nigh on impossible task.

'Ken Clarke returns to Tory frontbench in reshuffle - and immediately takes aim at Mandelson'
In British news, the Tories have welcomed overweight European Federalist Ken Clarke back to the Shadow Cabinet. I suspect this is part of their master plan to destroy the poll lead they've been building for a while now. Maybe he 'immediately took aim at Mandelson' because there's only room for one bloke who wants to sell the country to Brussels in order to improve his own personal prospects in mainstream British politics - but what am I saying, that's actually most of them these days.

Clarke is proof of what I've thought all along; David Cameron is not a conservative, he's a con-artist. I for one will not be voting for them next time.

If enough people follow my lead. it should scupper his chances, and then Britain might get what it so dearly needs - a proper conservative political party, not one that despises its traditional followers whilst sucking up to the Guardian and BBC crowd. One can dream, right?

'What use is Ken against Mandy? They agree on everything'
Opines Peter Hitchens. This is a slightly different subject to above, however; according to Hitchens, the EU is trying to insist that British citizens need a passport to enter the Channel Islands (Direct Dependencies of the Crown) and Isle of Man because they're not in the EU. This from an organisation which has made it possible to walk from Spain to Poland without meeting a border guard, yet still insists it can control immigration through a 'Fortress Europe' policy.

If they actually devoted as much time to sensible things as they do this nonsense, the entire entity would be governed almost frighteningly effectively.

Finally, one to warm your heart on this cold January day:
'Raiders kill an OAP's budgie'
The full text:

"Cruel burglars snapped the neck of a budgie in front of its elderly owner when she refused to give them £100.
The raiders had burst into the 78-year-old's home in Cardiff and, after stealing £150 they had found in a search of the house, demanded another £100 from the woman.
When she said she did not have any more cash in the house, one of the two burglars took her pet bird and killed it, before leaving.
'This was a despicable crime on an elderly lady who is in poor health. We believe these men have targeted her because of her age and because she lives on her own,' said Det Sgt Stuart Wales.
'The victim is deeply upset because not only has she been the victim of a crime, she has also lost her pet budgie, her soulmate, in a brutal and disturbing manner.' "

It never ceases to amaze me how low people can sink. It's worth noting that for some, this is just another day in modern Britain - a country the aforementioned David Cameron claims he's more than happy to live in.

Well, maybe if I had a policeman outside my door I'd agree, but I doubt it.

George W. Bush: Global Village Idiot?

This piece will be the first in a (hopefully) regular series called 'left-wing media watch', for which I will intrepidly read a very left-wing newspaper article, then publicise it here, trying to demonstrate which aspects are true, which are distortions, and which are more fictional than Sooty (no, not Prince Charles' Polo chum).

Tony Parsons from the irrepressible 'Daily Mirror' has the honour of starting us off. To be completely fair, I will be emailing Tony with the heads up that I plan to examine his columns (bet he can't wait).

Now, those of you who click on the wikipedia link will see Tony described as 'a right-wing populist'. I'm not sure that's true, or who actually wrote the article. Of course, if Tony himself did and he believes he's a 'right-wing populist' (whatever that even means), then it would be impolite to quibble; I'm fairly sure that status would relegate one to the naughty corner at Mirror HQ, however. The Daily Mirror is incredibly left-wing, but not like The Guardian (the staple of the left-liberal intelligentsia in Britain). The Mirror is appropriately named, for it is simply a mirror image of The Sun. The latter is right-wing in a low brow way, and the former is a hangover to the days of Magaret Thatcher Vs. Arthur Scargill. Upon reading some of their columns I think they almost wish their arch-nemesis was still in power; hitting people who don't fight back isn't half as fun now, is it?
Well, about as much fun as being proven wrong on almost every issue, and having your spiritual party hijacked by strange interlopers who you support anyway, because you happen to be as ridiculously tribal as the enemies you sneer at and denigrate.

As a brief aside, why are only right-wingers ever described as populist? I suppose because left-wing people are correct about everything, and the right wrong. Except where the right is correct it becomes 'populist', because the proles haven't been educated well enough in the ways of the Force, and still support the Dark Side.

Anyway, with apologies for the digression, this is the article that irked me: George W Bush's legacy: The global village idiot. It's probably time to confess that the article didn't irk me because I'm a huge fan or supporter of Bush; however I think the aptly titled 'Bush Derangement Syndrome' which has been doing the rounds since 2003 is a fascinating and terrifying political phenomenon. His often hilarious gaffes and 'Bushisms' aside, Bush has not been the ineffectual ignoramus he's made out to be on absolutely every issue.

I don't make a habit of reading Daily Mirror articles, but sometimes if I see a copy discarded on the train I will have a flick through. The first line that jumped to my attention from this one, however, was:

Ronald Reagan, despised as a simple version of Doctor Strangelove during his
administration, is now grudgingly admired for his stance against Communism.

Excuse me? 'Grudgingly' admired for his stance against Communism? It seems that Parsons is the master of understatement. I appreciate that an apologist for Communism might not see Reagan in quite the same light I do, but I cannot imagine anyone who is self-described as 'right-wing' ever uttering such words. Reagan and Thatcher took a very sensible stance on the issue, stepping away from outright provocation but insisting on appropriate defence funding and measures, along with realising that making concessions and appeasing such a vile regime was not morally right.

The article goes on to (grudgingly) laud Bush for his work in Africa, such as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDs Relief, which, according to Parsons has thrown a lifeline to millions of Africans. Perhaps no one told Bushitler he was saving African lives, or he was too stupid to work it out? Parsons even goes so far as to record for posterity that Bush did more practical good for Africa than Bill Clinton or Bono (an astounding revelation, to be sure), not that that will help him with the fashionable elites for whom image and perception seem to be far more important than actions and reality.

However it is the next section of the article that I genuinely take issue with. It reads like a reverse chronology of all the fashionable reasons to 'bash Bush', all the things the half-informed and the peaceniks despise the man for.

The 'shoe incident', when an Iraqi journalist sought to humiliate/assault/strongly demonstrate his opposition to violence by hurling his shoes at the President's head, is brought up immediately; it doesn't explicitly say that the journalist had a point, but the phrase 'Bush's wife loyally said...' implies that even she might have been sniggering behind her hand, thinking about how he had it coming. I found this incident very strange; firstly, it proved that clearly Iraq is more free now than it was in some ways. The press complained that the journalist was beaten and tortured, and if so that must be condemned. However the simple fact is that would have happened had he pulled such a stunt in any Arab country, and the retribution would have been far worse had he done it to an Arab leader (not that anyone would have paid any attention). Saddam would have probably fed him feet first into a meat grinder, perhaps personally. The incident also provided us with yet another example of the peace-loving left condoning violence, because seemingly it's OK to commit grievous bodily harm against someone if you disagree with him, or he's perceived to have failed, or he's (allegedly) right-wing. I some how doubt that will apply when things start going wrong for Obama.

For the record, I agree that the war in Iraq was a mistake, in many ways a dreadful one. It did, rightly or wrongly, squander much of the post 9/11 goodwill towards America. Parsons goes further than this; he says:

on a day when we watched 3,000 people murdered on live TV, George Bush somehow contrived to make the USA look like an aggressor.

That is an absolutely absurd statement. America was viciously and violently attacked that day, by Islamic extremists. I do not blame US support of Israel, or pretensions to the role of 'global policeman'; I blame the scum who carried out the attacks, thinking their 'holy book' gave them the right, nay the duty, to slaughter innocents. Also, this was 2 years before Iraq; Bush was not an aggressor for going after the Taliban in Afghanistan, he was responding to Islamic aggression, and picked the most fundamentalist Islamic regime on the planet. I would say he showed some moral cowardice in not calling out Saudi Arabia for the involvement of their citizens and their attempts to spread the creed of Wahhabism, but it was a case of first things first.

Despite the 11th of September 2001, Parsons tries to pretend that before Iraq, anti-Americanism was a phenomenon primarily found amongst those jealous of America's success and status. He also trots out that old chestnut about Bush's actions being a greater force in recruiting Islamic militants than any other. Again, this is a nice story, but it's simply untrue. Daniel Pipes has a fascinating archive full of Islamic terrorist activity stretching back decades. If Bush has made Muslims hate the US, what about the World Trade Centre bombing of 1993? What about the USS Cole attack in 2000? The African embassy bombings of 1998? Even the 1993 CIA shootings? You get the idea - this is a long road, and it has little to do with Bush, and everything to do with the people who carried out the attacks and their beliefs. Even better than this is the quote:

The very worst forces of America - warmongers, religious nutters, and raving
nationalists - swarmed around him [Bush] and painted their fantasies on his blank
canvas.

So, when people who happen to be Christian defend their country and citizens, they're religious nutters. I notice it goes unsaid that that is exactly what the 9/11 hijackers were. Aren't double standards great? I suppose in his world they were poor, oppressed lambs struggling against racism, and America's obvious war on Muslims, such as their bombing of the Christian Serbs to facilitate the transfer of Serbian territory to Muslim control... wait, did someone get the narrative the wrong way round? I hold no quarter for the 'neo-cons', they are to conservatism what Chairman Mao was to Chinese culture, but I call nonsense just that when I see it.

The strangest part is that, at the end of the article, he groups 9/11 in with Hurricane Katrina and the financial crisis, as if it were just an inexorable force of nature which hijacked those planes and flew them at important structures. No; it was certainly people who hated America, but not because of who was currently occupying the White House. Bush may have been 'unlucky to have this happen on his watch,' as Parsons puts it (not as unlucky as the victims, obviously), but much of the blame can be put elsewhere; Clinton had several chances to kill bin Laden after the embassy bombings (and admittedly a missed opportunity), but apparently it didn't seem that important compared to the potential for 'collateral damage'. But then, compared to harassing secretaries, what is? I agree the 'War on Terror' was poor and imprecise terminology, but I think it was Bush's attempt at diplomacy. We couldn't have a war on militant Islam, now, could we? Nope, but they've declared one on us. At least Bush tried to respond to the threat, no matter how ineffectually. Ironically, if he'd simply called a spade a spade despite the protests from the left (who just protested anyway), the whole endeavour may have turned out better. But, at least he helped prevent a second attack on American soil, something the entire free world should be grateful to him for.

As for Tony Parsons, his true colours shine through brightly in his latest article: Waking up to Barack Obama’s new American dream.
Good news - believing in a man's political vision simply because he's black is going to make race not matter anymore!

Thanks for that, Tone.