“Mr. President,” she asked the stone faced Coleman. “You’re going to arrive in Ireland in about 24 hours’ time, and no doubt you will be welcomed by our political leaders. Unfortunately, the majority of our public do not welcome your visit because they’re angry over Iraq, they’re angry over Abu Ghraib. Are you bothered by what Irish people think?”
Other than stutter, the president managed only to answer in vacant homilies about ‘the great values of our country.’
“We are a compassionate country,” he asserted. “We’re a strong country, and we’ll defend ourselves — but we help people.”
And that was about the depth of his explanation for the invasion of Iraq. Supremely satisfied with his own answers, Bush expected Coleman to be bowled over with his ‘good ol’ plain speakin’ English’, but Coleman, not infected with the American media’s insatiable appetite to service power, had other ideas.
She continued to grill Bush about the rising violence in Iraq, increased world wide threat of terrorism, and failure to find the weapons of mass destruction. Flustered and unaccustomed to serious challenges to his power, Bush displayed flashes of anger, and an increased reliance on catch phrases to argue the unarguable.
“These people are willing to kill innocent people,” he answered testily in response to questioning about the Iraqi death toll. “They’re willing to slaughter innocent people to stop the advance of freedom. And so the free world has to make a choice: Do we cower in the face of terror, or do we lead in the face of terror?”
Coleman cut through the simplistic slogans about evil doers and freedom loving Americans and continued to ask Bush serious questions about the illegal war he had just launched. It fast became evident that this was a man who really had no idea what he was doing — someone so removed from reality that he failed to even understand what he was being asked.
The world in Bush’s mind exists of good and evil, right and wrong, and America and everyone else. He could not fathom anyone disagreeing with his nobility, and simply refused to acknowledge that a different account of reality existed.
The interview took place almost four years ago, but is the perfect illustration of a man elected purely on name recognition, dirty money, and no discernible talent. Four years ago, there were still enough Americans who believed Bush’s infantile bluster was charming and direct. Now, even Republicans do not waste their time with him, quietly wishing he would disappear and stop embarrassing their party.
The interview with Coleman should go down on record as definitive proof of Bush’s utter incompetence, a priceless picture of a madman who had no business occupying the highest office of the land.
Ben Cohen is the editor of www.thedailybanter.com and a contributing writer to www.espn.com and Boxing Monthly Magazine. He can be reached at [email protected]
(Original Article)
Note that YouTube is *not* owned by Rupert Murdoch. It never has been, and it is now a subsidiary of Google.
{Ed. Note: YouTube isn’t owned by Murdoch? Please do tell us who bought Google and YouTube?]
Well, I tried to watch this but just listening to that twerp’s condescending bullshit for 3 minutes got my blood pressure so high my vision began to blur…
Had to stop.