I threw my shoes at the TV the other day when the Jets won
I’m editing this big ol’ file for this big ol’ environmental group right now. I am one of five or six on an editing team, and I definitely feel like the scrub. I’ve missed a lot of shit after the fact, and I find a lot of what I’m reading horribly confusing, but I’m getting better. I swear to god, I’m getting better.
yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine about your boy throwing his shoes at Bush. she thought that it was tasteless, tactless, etc. if he wanted to express his displeasure with President Bush, he should have found a much more constructive way of going about it. I think some of this comes from the fact that my friend is a journalist, and so was the the shoe thrower. maybe it’s a bit demeaning to the profession. you’re a journalist. you need to remain objective. you’re not supposed to have a pulse.
no, that’s not fair, I didn’t mean that. what I meant to say, is: you’re supposed to be rational, measured, reserved.
but I thought it was awesome.
everyone seems to operate on the definition of President George W. Bush as an elderly, wizened statesman. I guess that’s technically true. he ‘s been the president since the millenium, and he was a governor before that. but all of the associations that “wizened statesman” brings up – benevolence, pragmatism, rationality — he doesn’t occupy any of them. the Bush administration rode a wave of sabre-rattling and national hysteria after Sept. 11 into support for it’s asinine political agenda, and it resulted in a war sold on flimsy pretenses that sank billions of dollars into a morass of nation-building in the Middle East.
so now there’s a potentially stable democracy in Iraq. that’s great, it really is. but the ends don’t justify the means. the administration and its allies are still assholes for putting the nation, and the Iraqis, through it all. sectarian death squads, IEDs, reprisal killings, unchecked private security firms, Iranian involvement, pure anarchy for three years. for all of that, Bush is a dick. he’s the figurehead. he’s the fucking decider. so, yes, for all of the above, George Bush II is a dick.
you know, it would never happen, but there could be arguments made for putting that son of a bitch on trial as a war criminal. I say he’s getting off easy with just a symbolic act of defiance.
so I’m sorry that his secret victory lap didn’t go as planned, that his nice, calm bubble full of autocrats and American-blessed leaders and photo opportunities was rudely interrupted, and that icy-hot press secretary Dana Perino got a black eye. but a television reporter (and yes, a shitty journalist) threw his shoes at the President of the United States. that’s Arabic for “fuck you.” I’d venture a bet that most of the people you’d ask on the Baghdad street feel the same way, and I hope Bush remembers that when he retires to Dallas next month.
