This Post Has 6 Comments

1. 

   Tom January 16, 2009 Reply

   Satire is one thing! Disrespect for the office of the Presidency is another matter. NBC and MSNBC should be ashamed of themselves. Unless some kind of public apology is made I will be changing my home page from MSNBC to FOX.

2. 

   Niklaus Pfirsig January 16, 2009 Reply

   So, in a few days, George can retire back to his ranch in the twilight zone, where he seems to have existed for the last 8 years.

   I have a few things to add here.

   In 1979 ,while I was in college, I dated an Iraqi girl. She was on an Iraqi government grant majoring in civil engineering. Part of Saddam Hussein's plan to modernized Iraq emphasized education for women. I have heard repeatedly about Iraq's treatment of women and this makes no sense. If Saddam was against the education of women they why would he sponsor them in studies abroad for such important work as designing roads and bridges?

   Another thing.. Iran and Iraq as friends? The two nations have been bitter enemies for centuries. in the 1980, Iran under the new leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini, attempted to invade and annex Iraq. The two nations are separated not only by a mountain range, but by different language, customs and cultural differences.

   Iraq as a country that hated America? They have reason to hate us now, but in the 1950's and 1960's the US help to bring Saddam to power, and one of the first changes he made was the socialization of the Iraq oil company, a corporate monopoly that controlled the Iraqi oil. After being taken over by the Iraqi government, it became the sole source of revenue for the Iraqi government, so the Iraqi people paid no taxes. Iraqi oil kept the price of oil down on the international markets, and even after execution of Saddam Hussein, the Iraqi people favor the socialization of their oil industry. Of course this is unacceptable to the Bush administration. Under Saddam Hussein, they became the most westernized nation in the region, and were pretty much despised by our Arab allies in the region, and, according to my former girlfriend, the Iraqi people loved America, and simply could not understand why we hated them. (we parted ways many years ago, not out of choice, and I recently found where she is).

3. 

   Erich Vieth January 16, 2009 Reply

   Tom: Respect is only for people who have earned respect.

   Further, this commentary wasn't disrespect for the "office" of the President. Since when have torture, corruption and lies been a prerequisite for the "office"?

   Sounded to me like Maddow was going after the sordid actions and pathological confabulations of a MAN who occupied and mismanaged that office, leaving in his wake thousands of dead bodies, needless pain and a collapsing economy.

4. 

   Mark Tiedemann January 16, 2009 Reply

   Tom.

   Bush's people had a tendency to shit all over journalists who had the temerity to ask uncomfortable questions or criticize their decisions, especially in the first term. A little payback is due.

   And Erich is right—just because he's president (for a short while still) doesn't make him deserving of false respect. Respect the office but the current inhabitant is a—

   Well, far be it from me to be unkind.

5. 

   grumpypilgrim January 16, 2009 Reply

   Tom completely misses the mark. Maddow's critique of Bush *is* showing respect for the office. *Bush* is the one who has disrespected it.

6. 

   Hank January 18, 2009 Reply

   Tom, this apparent confusion of yours between the Office of President and the fallible, imperfect human who occupies that Office (at the pleasure of 300 million people) reminds me of the difference between a man who's loyal to his country and a man who's loyal to his government.

   The Office of President may well be sacrosanct – but that sanctity does not and can not extend to a mere MAN who occupies a chair. Men are fallible. Men make mistakes & bad decisions & exercise poor judgment. To extend the sacred democratic ideal of the Presidency and apply it to a mere man is just idolatry! There's no other word for it! Rightfully elected or not, Bush was your servant, not your infallible king. As your servant, you as a citizen have every right to call him whatever names you want and raise whatever hell you like if you think he's called the Presidency and your country into disrepute or just done something bone-jarringly retarded. It's considered a birthright in my country to hang shit on our elected leaders and such things are enshrined in the First Amendment of the US Constitution. Criticism of elected leaders can NOT be off the table ever; down that path lies tyranny – the very thing Bush himself has seen fit to rail against on more than one occasion. As a side-note it's telling that many of the US's favourites are, for all intents and purposes, still functioning tyrannies. I wonder how the public beheading-loving, woman-crushing Saudis would be treated if they didn't have vast amounts of something the US and the entire world has come to depend on…

   From an outside perspective (I'm Australian) it's been crystal clear to me over the last eight years that many, many supporters of Bush have purposely (or, conversely, in complete and utter ignorance of what they were doing) confused loyalty to country and loyalty to government and treated them as one and the same. "Surely," rent-a-pundits like Limbaugh and O'Reilly and Coulter and others, even comparatively mild ones, have spewed – and continue to spew, even now, as Bush's regime is in its last throes – "if you disagree with the president you're a traitor! Surely if you protest our invasion of Iraq you wish harm upon our troops! Surely if you vote for that black guy you're a Marxist islamofascist who wants to kill & eat BABIES! One land! One people! One leader!"

   Well, actually, NO, you overpaid talking-point script-bots with your overburdened asses and underburdened brains. If you take your president to task for endangering his own citizens for no good reason (that's right – there was absolutely NO legal, justifiable reason to invade & occupy Iraq), you're doing your job as a citizen of a free democratic country. If you protest your leader's decisions because they contravene International Law, you're doing your duty as a citizen of The World. If you vote for the opponent of the president's party, you're fulfilling your civic duty as a voter. Hell, if you just want to go all the way & hold up your middle finger, throw a shoe at your TV and shout "GOOD RIDDANCE YOU MURDEROUS BRAIN-DEAD HICK BASTARD" on January 20, you are in all likelihood behaving like most of the known universe at this point in history.

   These puffed-up Fox News/shock-jock halfwits seemingly have No Flipping Idea what it actually means to be a citizen of a free democracy. They seem to think it means loyalty to an ideology or a leader over the welfare of their own country and the well being of their own citizens! It seems these clowns would be happier as part of the media of a totalitarian state with no freedom to criticise the government, no freedom to protest bad decisions and no choice in who governs the country! Of course, only as long as it was THEIR team in power.

   Just watch over the next four to eight years: just watch as the usual gang of idiots, who have blindly supported Bush's every half-baked plan & every glaring clusterfuck, use their enshrined and sacred rights to Free Speech to rail, knee-jerk, against Obama's every decision & every word, regardless of any potential benefit that they may carry for their beloved country. The fact that Obama said or did it will be enough to convince the talking heads (of the allegedly "liberal" media) that it is pure EVIL. In fact, to listen to the Fox/Whitehouse puppets rant hysterically over the last few years, anyone would think the godless liberals have in fact been in tyrannical, absolute power since 2000 and have been doing nothing BUT persecute patriotic white Christian Republican voters. I can only foresee that this martyr complex that some on the Republican side of the room have applied to themselves will only deepen during Obama's term.

   .h.