Bush-bashing all the rage in U.S.

Written By: jensonj
Date: 2006-08-28 17:06:54
<a href="/article/160654989-bushbashing-all-the-rage-in-us">Article Link</a>

I started in the newspaper business as a copy boy on the Washington Post exactly 60 years ago last Jan. 2.

Nine months before that, Franklin D. Roosevelt had died early in his fourth term as president.

No politician in my lifetime, except Winston Churchill, was revered like Roosevelt. It amounted to adulation. This, however, worked ill for his successor.

Harry S. Truman, his vice-president, a clothing store owner from Kansas City, seemed to be Roosevelt's diametric opposite...

Full article:
<a href="http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Byfield_Ted/2006/08/27/1778898.html">http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/Columnists/Byfield_Ted/2006/08/27/1778898.html</a>

What a piece of rubbish. Well, look who wrote it, the doyen of the Western ultra-right.

"doyen", huh?

I sure hope Ted's Funkin'Wagnall's got that there frog
word in it.

I guess it's just my old age showing, Anarcho; while I
think your assessment is pretty accurate, I also like that
Ted, like all story-spinners, provokes thought and
discussion.

Ted said he joined Wash-Post in Jan-1946: about a year
after Harry S.Truman took on the completion of the dead
FDR's presidency.

The young can be forgiven for thinking that VE-Day, 1945,
followed shortly by VJ-Day, returned the world to sanity,
peace and order. After the death of 60 million (mostly
innocents), you'd think so. How untrue. The USSR went on a
rampage of expansion & occupation, weapon build-up, and
sabre-rattling. In China, Mao was assembling his puzzle.
Hagganah terrorism had persuaded Britain that its
protectorate of Palestine wasn't worth the grief. India
was well on the way too, showing the door to the British.
Probable proliferation of atomic weapons had everyone
scared witless.

Ted has quite accurately described how unwelcome,
disdained and disrespected Trueman was inside the beltway.
So it's pretty much inarguable that a year later, Truman
found himself faced with an unavoidable decision: to go
for a second term; or let himself be chased back to his
haberdashery at year's-end.
Quietly getting out of town was appealing, for he was
(largely) friendless, supporterless, and penniless.
There was, however, his pride (looking for an
alternative).

Gore Vidal has, here-and-there, quoted what he said was
one of John F. Kennedy's favourite (in-confidence) tales.
About how Truman was given a surprise "offer he couldn't
refuse" in the form of re-election support *plus* a
valise-full ($8-million?) of money. The price, as Kennedy
told it, was that the USA fully support the birth of the
state of Israel, and moreover, that the US cause the UN
to fall into line. Truman, Kennedy said, delivered in
spades. You can find this story by Googling.

I've always been a sucker for history taught through
gossip about the main players. So I salute the memory of
Dr. Bailey, my professor of history at McGill
half-a-century ago. He had such an engaging genius for
obscure, yet illuminating gossip.
Thanks for the reminder, Ted; you just keep right on
flingin' that hazzanga !

Vive la Reine !
e.p.1

I wonder if Truman farted out loud when he was introduced to new employees in the White House? I tend to think, probably not. 
 
Robert Parry: 'Bush's disdainful presidency' 
 
The U.S. news media always makes light of George W. Bush's tendency to put down others through disparaging comments about their personal appearances or by assigning them silly nicknames. It's just the "inner frat boy" coming out, we're told. 
 
So, when U.S. News cited "a top insider" describing how Bush likes to fart in the presence of junior White House staffers as a joke on them, the item was given the boys-will-be-boys title: "Animal House in the West Wing." 
 
According to U.S. News, Bush was just "a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides." Bush was described, too, as someone who "loves to cuss [and] gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him." [U.S. News, Aug. 20, 2006] 
 
But Bush's behavior could be viewed in a less sympathetic light. Given his famous thin skin whenever he feels slighted, his eagerness to demean others could be interpreted as a sign of his dynastic authority, a modern-day droit du seigneur in which he can humiliate others but they can't return the favor. 
 
<a href="http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=27487&mode=nested&order=0">http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=27487&mode=nested&order=0</a> 
 
Wait a minute, Boy Blunder also likes to cuss. Now what cuss words would Jesus use?

"By authorizing the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki he ended the Second World War in two weeks, saving the millions of Japanese and American lives that an invasion of Japan unquestionably would have cost."

This kind of thinking seems to clearly reflect the values of the new right. The lives of innocent people are far less important than the lives of combatants. The same theory seems to have led to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon where vengence for the lives and kidnapping of soldiers was primarily directed on the civilian population (of both countries). The value of these people are of secondary importance and are dismissed as "collateral damage."

This statement was made by Eisenhower in 1953 to the American Society of Newspaper writers:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

This farewell statement by Eisenhower was made to the American people at the end of his second term in 1961:

“…we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.”

I think it is quite clear that Bush is a paragon of the USA’s military, corporate, industrial complex. It seems that Ted Byfield is not in the least bit “alert”, as Eisenhower encouraged his fellow citizens to become.

Mike
Winnipeg

And it's complete falsehood. The Japanese were ready to surrender, their only condition was that they got to keep their 'god' emperor as a figurehead.

After the US nuked them, they then accepted the same surrender - allowing them to keep their figurehead.

There was never going to be any invasion.

The US nuked them to test their new toy in a realistic environment - IN FRONT OF THE RUSSIANS, as a clear threat -warning. The nuking of Japan was the real start of the Cold War.

---
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous, the essential act of warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour”

Bush is a figurehead, a dumb-ass puppet who spends most of his time where he can't screw things up - ON VACATION.

He was elected because of his Daddy, because he's Skull and Bones, and because of his oil money and love for the oil corps.

He is told what to say, where to go, what to do. He is kept around because he has this dopey western cowboy homliness to him that appeals to the American public.

If you asked him why he decided to Invade Iraq, he'd probably tell you something in private like, 'Cause they tried ta shoot ma paw, and cause Rummie and Dick said it was a good plan'.

I find it so amusing how we tend to scapegoat the one guy in front, who is only there for 4 years at a stretch, who really has no frikken idea at all what's going on, led around by the nose all day.

Who will they pick next? Hillary? They'll tell her what to say, too. She's very pro-war, but she's a democrat, a nice blend. Or maybe they'll try Connie? Nah, too many old clansmen in the GOP still for that to go through.

---
“The war is not meant to be won, it is meant to be continuous, the essential act of warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labour”

Bashing?

I see telling how it is is now concidered bashing?:
Freakin Marvelous

---
We have met the enemy and he is us
Pogo
A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.
Plutarch

excellent response Sarge,
and quite true!

---
We have met the enemy and he is us
Pogo
A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled.
Plutarch

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsPSI-tcoaI">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsPSI-tcoaI</a>--- We have met the enemy and he is us 
Pogo 
A mind is a fire to be kindled, not a vessel to be filled. 
Plutarch