Bush, Flying Shoes and Remembering the Truth

[WilliamPitt]

Former President Bush ducking to avoid being hit by the two shoes
thrown by Al-Baghdadia TV journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi at a press
conference. Baghdad, Iraq, December 14, 2008.
(Image: US Federal Government)

Bush, Flying Shoes and Remembering the Truth
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Saturday 04 October 2014

Remember the guy in Iraq who threw his shoes at George W. Bush? It was December of 2008, during a press conference people only remember now because of the footwear that was flying.

As it turns out, however, that was actually a genuinely weighty presser.

Why?

Allow me, if I may, to paint a picture.

Imagine a man, a child of exceeding privilege, who stumblebumbed his way to a business degree from a prestigious institution of higher learning he had no business attending on the merits, but for his last name, and the bankroll attached to it. He had trouble with drugs, and booze, and then trouble with military service, and then sullied the reputation of that aforementioned learning institution by running every single business he laid hands on into the ground.

Yet, somehow, by the magic of money, connections, and Jesus - to whom this child of privilege stapled himself in his less-inebriated 40s - the man who earned nothing on his own, barely dragged himself to his degree, and ruined every enterprise he touched as if he was King Midas in reverse, one day discovered he was the Governor of Texas...and then, by dint of the single most broken election in American history, and thanks entirely to a Supreme Court decision that will knock boots with Dred Scot for all eternity, this son of privilege C-student failure of a businessman became President of The United States, and we as a nation will be digging out from under that sulfurous confluence of circumstances for another half-dozen generations to come, if we're lucky.

Yeah, I'm talking about George, the fellow who used September 11 against you and I to begin the ongoing ravaging of civil rights in the United States, to win some elections, and most importantly, to slap the country into a war in Iraq that has not ended, but made his friends (Dick Cheney, Halliburton, KBR, United Defense, The Carlyle Group, and oh yeah, his dad) filthy rich. Most people consider George a failed president, but I vehemently disagree. According to the goals laid out by the paymasters who created him - cut taxes for rich people, make government dysfunctional, and loot the Treasury by way of war - George was the single most successful president in the entire history of the country.

(snip)

So here's the funny part. I give you George W. Bush, speaking to Fox News on Thursday:

Former President George W. Bush, who before leaving office warned against withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq too early, told Fox News that America has since learned the "lesson" that Iraqis are not yet capable of providing for their own security.

"The Iraqi people obviously are going to have to make a decision as to whether or not they want to live in peace," the former president said. "They're not ready to do it on their own, and that's the lesson we've learned recently."

Bush, in 2007, had delivered a prescient warning about what might happen if U.S. troops withdrew too early. He said at the time this would risk "mass killings on a horrific scale" and potentially draw U.S. troops back into the country.

Asked Thursday how he knew, Bush said: "I know the nature of the enemy."

(snip)

Yes, the great sage, who knew all the way back in 2007 that abandoning the plan to make Iraq a permanent US military base, no matter how high the casualty lists grew, no matter the staggering cost, was a bad idea. Only Fox could make George W. Bush sound like Yoda.

MSNBC had an even cuter take: "Former President George W. Bush is pointing to the resurgence of violence in Iraq as validating his belief that American troops should have stayed in that war-torn country instead of withdrawing in 2011."

The same man who signed a deal with the Iraqi government in 2008 that required the withdrawal of American forces in 2011.

How do I know that? I know that because he gave a press conference to announce it on December 14th, 2008, which would have been just another press conference, except during this press conference, an Iraqi journalist named Muntadhar al-Zaidi threw his shoes at Bush while roaring, "This is a farewell, you dog!"

(snip)

Someone is going to have to come up with a better term for "shameless." The word has been burned out completely by stupid people with blood on their hands who still somehow wind up on television.

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/26623-bush-flying-shoes-and-remembering-the-truth

[malthaussen]

1. Kudos for gratuitous rock reference.

It is the hubris of our American Empire that we believe we can solve problems that have been in existance since before we were a nation.

-- Mal

[jwirr]

2. Actually we think we can solve problems that existed long before most modern nations existed.

[corkhead]

3. perfect excuse to post this timeless classic:

[New Orleans Strong]

4. Mr. Pitt -

Preach on - most probably to a zombie nation, but for the love of all that is good but not holy, preach fucking on. Preach fucking on -

[FlatStanley]

5. We live in a post 9/11 world, Mr. Pitt, were facts mean nothing

And people lose all sense of ethics when their team's in charge.

But I do appreciate this post, because it gives the pretzel Democrats a way to argue that President Obama had the foresight to try and keep troops in Iraq, rather than try to take credit for the end of the war.

[JEFF9K]

6. President Bush, adieu!

President Bush, adieu.
I'm feelin' like I wanna throw a shoe.
But I'll be satisfied to sing and cheer and whoop and shout,
As the door hits you on the way out.

[progressoid]

7. ...

[spanone]

8. the real footage....

[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]

[WilliamPitt]

9. Ha!

Win.