dissociatedpress.com » george bush

Outrage Outs Hypocritical Gay Politicians

admin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 11:01:22 +0000

I missed Outrage when it hit theaters in May, so I’ll be trying to crash a friend’s place this evening to catch it on HBO. The idea of a movie created specifically to out politicians that are publicly anti-gay while privately being gay hits some dynamic chords for me. Conversations about issues related to gay rights are usually a little more nuanced in my circles. I’m not sure I’m behind government approval of gay marriage, for example, but that’s because I’m not sure I believe in government PERIOD. Otherwise, I vehemently support a person’s right to marry whomever they like, regardless of gender, or even species — as long as the other species is consenting. In this case though, it’s a little more cut-and-dried for me. The idea here is exposing politicians’ hypocrisy, not their sex lives, right? How can that be wrong? Well, I wonder how a filmmaker shooting a film like this chooses their “targets”, and what their methodology is in general. But hell. Once they’ve got the goods, it’s a no-brainer, right? They’re just exposing lying politicians, right? As Rep. Barney Frank (whom I previously had no idea was openly gay) puts it: “There is a right to privacy, there’s no right to hypocrisy.” If you’ve read this far, you may be curious as to just who the film exposes. The list includes Florida governor Charlie Crist, who was once a likely pick as John McCain’s running mate; David Dreier, who was once a leading Republican candidate for House majority leader; Ken Mehlman, George Bush’s campaign manager during the 2004 election and former RNC chairman; former New York City mayor Ed Koch; the now-retired Idaho Sen. Larry Craig; Jim McCrery (R-La.), a ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee who recently retired; Ed Schrock (R-Va.), who retired in 2004; and Shepard Smith of Fox News. Outrage was written and directed by Kirby Dick, who also brought us This Film Is Not Yet Rated, which explored the secretive and inconsistent process by which the MPAA rates films, which the MPAA ironically later pirated for their own use. Outrage mostly has support in the gay community, but what do you think? Should hypocritical politicians be outed this way?

Outrage Trailer

Hank Paulson Could Sell An Ice Cube To An Eskimo

admin — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 04:19:49 +0000

So Long, And Thanks For All The Crocs!

I guess the fact that Hank Paulson is releasing the book On the Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System in 2010 should instill in us all a comforting feeling that the financial crisis is well behind us now. Well, it doesn’t. It does however, instill in some of us the feeling that Paulson is a greedy self-engrossed bastard that is so out of touch with the reality of those of us that are paying for his spectacular destruction of capitalism as we know it that he thinks we’d buy his book. Or be able to afford it, for that matter. It also – along with the impending release of Bush speechwriter Matthew Latimer’s Speech-less: Tales of a White House Survivor – makes for some hilarious pre-release reading. The only thing that might give you a better laugh than Latimer’s self-aggrandizing piece in GQ is Wonkette’s reaction to it. My favorite excerpt is when Wonkettes’s Juli Weiner takes Latimer’s passage “Paulson was supposed to be a nonideological, pragmatic, sensible type. He was bald with glasses and had a scratchy voice that sounded like he had a thousand-dollar bill caught in his throat” and translates it as “Paulson loved eating money. This is why the economy became so bad, because he ate all the money, we’d write. Because that’s what we were told.” Taking a more serious tone, the Vanity Fair piece Henry Paulson’s Longest Night rambles on in an almost surreal attempt to build compassion for Paulson by telling us what a tough job it was for him to hoodwink Washington with his buddy Bernanke and then sweep their frightening mess under the rug using the veil of secrecy provided by being in charge of the Federal Reserve. Probably the most gratifying thing in this piece is when the author describes Paulson throwing up in the next room while he talks about Nancy Pelosi. I can’t wait for more of the continuing flood of these opportunistic and treacherous “insider views”, but so far the most interesting thing I’ve learned from Latimer’s, Paulson’s and Tom Ridge’s tell-all sellouts is that Bush wears Crocs*.

*Something Latimer deemed pertinent on page 5 of his GQ piece

Our Constitution: It’s Just To DIE For

admin — Fri, 22 May 2009 14:47:21 +0000

With Memorial Day weekend upon us, maybe it’s time to take a moment to honor those who have died for our great country. Or, more importantly, maybe ask ourselves if we would do the same, or if we even live in the same country they did. I mean, if one of the things you’d be willing to die for is the constitution, shouldn’t you check first to see if it still exists? We now know that not only did the Bush administration declare the 4th Amendment irrelevant, but apparently the new administration isn’t doing a lot to change things, and recently, the FCC has been taking things to a new level regarding search and seizure. You know that tag you’ll find on mattresses that says “Do Not Remove Under Penalty of Law“? By now, most of us know it wasn’t directed at the consumer. But there’s another tag in your house you might be concerned about. Do you own a wireless router, a cordless phone, a baby monitor, or a cell phone? You know the label that you’ll find on some devices (and in that chapter of the manual you didn’t read) that refers to Part 15 of the FCC rules? Well, in a rather bizarre twist, the FCC has perverted these regulations to give themselves authority to conduct warrantless searches on private property. I’d suggest you mount your wireless router on the outside of your house, and put all your other devices in a lockbox outside your door. That baby monitor’s gonna be a problem though.

Time Is An Illusion, Lunchtime Doubly So

admin — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:23:26 +0000

My concept of time was destroyed at a relatively early age, first by reading Ray Bradbury short stories like A Sound of Thunder, and later by being exposed to Zen and eastern religion by reading pop philosopher Alan Watts. That headline of course is quoting a Douglas Adams character, Adams being another individual who apparently took an early disregard for the concept of time. All of which has something to do with my mild contempt for daylight savings time and the fact that I felt somehow cheated out of an hour this morning. So who’s behind this grand conspiracy to give us travel-free jetlag? Well, most recently the change was rolled into the Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed by George Bush. I still don’t understand why changing the dates of daylight savings time saves energy, and in fact, if you read this explanation on Wikipedia, you might end up concluding it only benefits wealthy golfers. But before all you ranting Liberal Elitists start blaming Bush, understand the trail goes back MUCH further, to 1884 and the International Meridian Conference, which was requested by U.S. President Chester A. Arthur, the guy we always forget because he only became president when Garfield was assassinated. Which I think makes it clear that there was indeed a conspiracy. An assassination, an international plan to modify TIME ITSELF….I’d follow up this morning but I’m short of time.

New WhiteHouse.gov: Spiffier Than Joe Biden’s Teeth!

admin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 13:32:48 +0000

It’s kind of refreshing in a way to look for old Bush press information and encounter the image at left. The Obama administration didn’t waste a second hitting the “Delete” button and getting new content on the White house web site yesterday. I’m excited by the prominence of the message that “WhiteHouse.gov will be a central part of President Obama’s pledge to make his the most transparent and accountable administration in American history“, and the fact that the administration’s Director of New Media Macon Phillips had a blog post up the first day is encouraging. However, contrary to this Wired.com article’s perception of all the technical genius going on, my inauguration day experience with technology was a little frustrating. I don’t have regular TV, so often watch things like this on line. When I visited the CNN live feed, even though it queued me up before I got an active stream, I thought it was pretty cool that I could see my friends “live blogging” (even though I seemed to be the only person I know who LOVED Aretha’s hat) since I had recently been logged into FaceBook. That is, until the second time I commented on the stream, when the video died. Rather than wait in line again at CNN, I fired up my Joost account, only to find it couldn’t connect. I eventually went to the Joost home page (Hulu was having seizures too) and got a solid stream. Until about 5 minutes into the speech, at which point it just sputtered out completely, so I switched on NPR (and people wonder why I’m such a late adopter with technology. Puh!) In any case, I couldn’t be more enthused about the changey hopey, and I’m glad there seems to be enough humor in this new administration that maybe we’ll have more things like joebidensteeth.com. Smile everybody! It’s a new era!

For Immediate Relief: Bush’s Final Press Conference*

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 04:00:39 +0000

Watching Bush’s final press conference was kind of depressing. After 8 years of wanting to hate the man as an evil leader, you could suddenly see him for what he really is: a not terribly stupid, college-educated son from a wealthy and powerful family who was ill-equipped to lead the free world and probably knew it from the get-go. His tone throughout most of the conference was what one might call “wistfully relieved”. He still exhibited his tendency to come across as a little sociopathic, showing no remorse for his actions beyond how they may have been perceived historically or as bad policy timing. He displayed none of his familiar deer-in-the-headlights-while-waiting-for-the-soundbite-through-the-earpiece-shifty-eyedness. He was clearly speaking “on his feet”, as it were, presumably a safe move when one has barely a week left in office and is in fact already packed and heading off to the golf course. To me the single most notable thing was the appalling detachment he seems to have toward the country he led for eight years. It’s like he took the family Mercedes for a spin on a sunny day with bricks of cash and a reasonably happy family in the back seat, and brought it back a few years later fender-less, out of gas, broke, the family emaciated or dead, and is handing the keys back to dad with a blank look of “What? I brought it back before curfew like I said” on his face.

*Worst journalistic pun I plan to make this year.

It All Comes Out In The End…

admin — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 00:46:32 +0000

We Bought The Farm, Now He’s Selling The Ranch

admin — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 05:03:22 +0000

A Kinder, Snugglier Legacy?

It’s too bad George Bush didn’t like reading the newspaper as president. If he had, he might have realized what a horrible person he’d been much sooner, and wouldn’t be apologizing for it now. Not that he didn’t have plenty of help from his Constitution-shredding “co-president” , and the revolting gasbag he affectionately refers to as Turd Blossom. So he’s selling the infamous Rancho De Relaciones Públicas and moving back to his native suburban environment, which apparently makes a few people happy. But where does the end of the eight-year-empire leave us as people and a country? Will we do anything to address the crimes the Bush administration has committed? There are plenty of reasons to impeach Bush and Cheney; are we just going to move along like a big dysfunctional family as if nothing ever happened? Part of me wants to do that, but part of me feels like not addressing what has happened will encourage other megalomaniacs to repeat the pattern. What do you think?

The War On Error Begins

admin — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 15:05:33 +0000

Talk Stupid, Stupid

admin — Sun, 05 Oct 2008 16:37:07 +0000