After reading the latest round of celebrity Bush-bashing today, I decided to see how quickly I could find links to celebrities publicly insulting the President. Criticism of policy doesn't count - just personal comments like stupid, liar, imbecile, etc.
Here's what I found:
Chevy Chase - "This guy is as bright as an egg-timer."
Robert Altman - "the idea that George Bush could run a baseball team successfully -- he can't even speak! I just find him an embarrassment."
Jessica Lange - "I hate George W. Bush"
Danny Glover - ”Yes, he's racist [Bush]. We all knew that, but the world is only finding it out now,"
Morrissey - "Bush should have died, not Reagan"
Rob Reiner - "he has no intellectual curiosity"
Martin Sheen - "George W Bush is like a bad comic working the crowd, a moron, if you'll pardon the expression,"
Julia Roberts - "The man's embarrassing. He's not my president and never will be, either. Republicans come in the dictionary just after reptile, and just above repugnant."
Al Franken - "He's the president of all of us ... you know, so support him even though he's kind of stupid"
Woody Allen - "he has no idea about anything"
I challenge my friends and family to quote similar personal attacks against John Kerry, by the famous or not-so-famous. I'll even count "unpatriotic" which Kerry supporters claim has been said by various people on the right. I won't count "flip-flopper" or "hypocrite" either because it relates to his positions, and has been acknowledged in a way by his supporters who say that he "takes nuanced positions" or "doesn't see things in black and white".
UPDATE: Here's some more from last night's Kerry-Edwards Bush-bashing party:
In a tune from the stage of Radio City Music Hall, musician John Mellencamp referred to Bush as a ``cheap thug.'' Actor Chevy Chase called Bush ``a liar,'' and actor Paul Newman referred to the president's tax cuts as ``borderline criminal.''
4 comments:
Let's start here:
"Kerry has been compared this election season to “The Addams Family”’s heavy-browed Lurch (by both former New York Times executive editor Howell Raines and by CNBC’s talk show host/comic Dennis Miller). The Weekly Standard’s Matt Labash sees in Kerry’s mug a “long-faced Easter Island mask,” while The New Yorker’s Philip Gourevitch observes “a long, angular face [that] has something of the abstraction of a tribal mask.” Kerry reminds Knight Ridder’s Dick Polman of “those long-faced walking trees in ‘Lord of the Rings,’” while the Chicago Tribune sees a “droopy, hound-dog look.” Kerry, it seems, was repeatedly whacked by an Ugly Stick sometime between 2000 and 2004. (Not exactly a ringing endorsement for Botox, if you -- like the Tribune and other news outlets -- entertain that sort of scuttlebutt).
But there are worse things than ugly; Kerry has also, apparently, lost any shred of charisma, and is now utterly free of charm. In April, the St. Petersburg Times wrote, “...rarely do [Democrats] have much to say about [Kerry’s] personal appeal or charisma.” On June 20, the (New York) Daily News editorialized that Kerry “is charisma-challenged by a mannequin.” (This from newspapers that sang the praises of the charismatic and attractive Kerry not four years ago.)
In March, Chris Matthews wondered aloud on “Hardball” whether John Kerry “has the stuff,” given that “nobody ever associated the word charisma with [him].” (Four years ago, Matthews had no such doubts about Kerry. “I think [Gore-Kerry is] going to be the ticket, I’ll say it here, because I believe that -- that Bill Clinton, to his credit, set the standard: Pick a vice president who looks right from day one like he could be president,” he declared in July of 2000.)
And, during a televised Democratic primary debate last February, CBS’s Dan Rather asked John Edwards a question that perhaps set the rest of the press pack a-wondering: Did Kerry, Rather asked Edwards, have “enough Elvis” in him to beat Bush -- “enough excitement factor, enough charisma, enough likeability?”
Well, apparently no. For, having lost not only his good looks but also his charisma, the once charming Kerry has apparently grown “aloof,” a favorite word in the new press lexicon. (Stripped of our face and our personality, we have to confess, we might grow a tad “aloof” ourselves.) Newsweek’s Howard Fineman wrote in February about “the matter of Kerry’s public persona: he can seem aloof, condescending and soporific.” In March, Gloria Borger asked her roundtable cohorts on CNBC’s “Capital Report”: “We always called [Kerry] aloof. Is he still aloof, or is this -- or is he trying to warm up here for us?” On June 16, the Washington Post’s Lois Romano wrote that Kerry “often comes off as aloof and elitist.”"
All of that from: http://www.campaigndesk.org/archives/000668.asp
(and that's just reporters from the "liberal" media.) HAHAHAHA!
I'll find more later. :) This is fun! :D
Jon
Touche (I don't know how to add the accent on the end).
I would still rather be called boring than a moron, an embarrassment, liar, thief, murderer, etc.
Wouldn't you?
C'mon show me some real nasty stuff - something that if true, would prevent him from reaching the Pearly Gates. Being boring never got anyone into Hell. I mean, my dad would be considered boring by the media if he were a presidential candidate. That's not a crime.
If Kerry wages an unpopular war and his administration justifies it to the American people by false evidence, he'll probably be called a murderer too. If Kerry makes as many verbal flubs as our President does, he'll probably be called a moron as well. (Or course, we both know he's just 'misunderestimated'. His 'strategery' will reveal itself in time.) If he lies to the American people, they will call him a liar.
Personally, I object to the name calling. The office should be respected, no matter who is holding it, because:
a) The office represents the American people and what we stand for.
b) The office deserves respect no matter who is holding it, even if the person occupying it does nothing worthy of that respect.
President bashing is nothing new. A popular poster from the Vietnam war era stated "Mr. Nixon, pull out like your father should have." Politicians rarely elicit respect because they don't act in ways that deserve it. I personally see very little about our President and his policies that is inspiring, Presidential or praiseworthy. But, when Bush has done things I respect, I've mentioned them, and will continue to do so. When he does things I find offensive, I'm going to point them out. And when his administration does things that don't "restore dignity and honor" to the White House, I'm going to point those out too. I don't like hypocrites.
However, as angry as I may get, I try not to launch personal attacks. I objected to this when conservatives attacked Clinton and failed to maintain respect for the office and I object to this now, when the left can't keep their mouths shut. Celebrities are generally obnoxious. Just look at Rush Limbaugh.
You know... let's do that. He speaks for the mainstream conservative movement. He's arguably the most popular conservative pundit. (Well, according to him, anyway.) Let's see what he's saying about the Democrats and Kerry/Edwards.
**time passes**
I just spent 10 minutes on Rush Limbaugh's site reading stories calling Kerry a liar, elistist, a communist, untrustworthy and a fool. They said he "caressed" the cheek of his VP candidate, in what may be the most shining example of immaturity (or is it gay-bashing for a redneck conservative audience) I've seen this week. These stories accused him of shady mortgage and business scams.
There was a link, surprisingly enough to a "Fuck Kerry" t-shirt. That surprised the heck out of me, since the site also had a page of "Fuck Bush" t-shirts. How um.... respectful of him to provide a link.
Of course, Rush can't be trusted on everything. Here's a quote from the show on 6/30: "The September 11th Commission, in a staff report yesterday, made it clear that the war on Al-Qaeda has been a profound success. They are not equipped to make another major attack on the United States." Two weeks later, Tom Ridge announced Al Queda were planning a major attack. Mission Accomplished, eh? It was so nice and honest of him to print a retraction.... except he didn't. Rush also said: "All you need to do is read a book like Clinton's and find one lie in it, and you have justification for not believing anything else. That's why I call the book 'My Lie.'" Should we take the administration's lies in the same context? What about Rush's, as evidenced above?
But wait! There's more.
Here's a story where he called Kerry, Clinton and the Democrats communists, and explained how taking a quote from a poem proves they're following the Communist Manifesto. http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_063004/content/rush_is_right_2.guest.html
More quotes: "We killed his sons, took his country, and put him in jail. Yet today Saddam is still calmer and more rational than Howard Dean after he lost Iowa, and Gore after he lost his mind. He's calmer and more rational than the rest of the mainstream Democrats and the kook lib fringe out there."
So Gore has lost his mind, and Howard Dean is irrational. Explain to me how this is not a personal attack?
“Howell Raines, former editor of the New York Times, has ripped me off. He has a column in the Guardian where he calls John Kerry 'Lurch' from the Addams Family. He doesn't give me any credit for it – just rips me off!”
So Rush said it originally and he's proud of it.
About Kerry: “The last thing Hillary wants is for this lug head, charismatic dud of a candidate to actually lurch into the White House. She wants to make it look like she’s helping Kerry, when she's not. It’s all about Hillary in '08, folks.”
*sigh*
You know, I'm sure Rush is simply an aberration.
All conservative pundits aren't like this, right? Ann "Fifth Horsewoman of the Apocalypse" Coulter and Sean "Liberals are Evil Despotic Terrorists" Hannity don't spout this anti-Democratic and Anti-Kerry/Edwards/Clinton nastiness on a regular basis, do they?
Say it ain't so! *snicker*
Should I bother going there?
Conclusion:
The left has it's celebrity Bush Bashers. The right has their pundit Kerry Bashers. But trying to paint the right as saints when they're most certainly not is ridiculous. :D Really, really ridiculous. Ludicrous even. ;-)
I'll call you later. I took the 27th off and we'll now able be to spend a more time while you're in town. :)
I had a lot of fun doing this, thanks!
Jon
This is what I love about the blog thing: it's a great opportunity to learn. And thanks for the lesson and the effort you put into it. I definitely committed the sin of researching one side of the story without looking at the other.
It does make me a little bit sad that there isn't at least one side that can refrain from personal attack. Aside from prostitution, politics is probably the least changed of human endeavours over the millenia.
Can't wait to see you guys!
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