I had me a very American 9/11 day. Three vivid changes of mood that brought home a great truth about our country:
1. First thing in the morning I got projectile-vom livid when I heard that George Bush was in NYC talking to firefighters. Wanted to throw up in my mouth because that warmonger was in my city. I’m from the camp that thinks 9/11 was a disaster that Bush/Cheney turned into a catastrophe with their stoopid war in Iraq.
2. Then, after watching some sad-making Ground Zero names-of-the-dead intoning on TV, I took in a movie. It was the classic Jane Russell/Marilyn Monroe vehicle directed by Howard Hawks, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”
God, did that change my mood. What a delight: Jane Russell, built like an oversexed battleship, with tattas bigger than brownstones … Marilyn Monroe looking almost petite next to Jane, even though her gazoombas could poke a man’s eyes out at twenty paces … and the razzmatazz pizzazz, the love of living high, the gold-digging, the irony about self, the shrewdness and sexiness and sass of Jane and Marilyn, their gowns clinging to them like lickable icing on sumptuous cake, their brio ... such fun and joy and spirited goings-on. I felt like a real American again, my faith in the country totally restored.
3. Then, for a final capper at the end of the day, I saw George Bush address the nation, against the wishes of my companion, who’s had it with Bush and wants to see him as little as possible. I, on the other hand, welcome any opportunity to stoke my disdain for the guy. And nothing does it better than seeing him on TV doing whatever he does, which is usually the most vacuous excuse-making for his inexcusable behavior—usually of the we’ve-all-got-be-as-scared-shitless-as-I-am ilk, so you all can have a reason-to-trust-me, because I’ll protect you. The man hasn’t changed his tune in years.
As I watched Bush, I stopped being angry. After all, my spirits had been lifted sky-high by Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe. It occurred to me that this man was so small, so pathetic, he was almost powerless, even though he was the most powerful man on earth. But he was losing his power over me. Then my companion said a great thing. She said that watching him, she felt our once mighty nation shrink sharply down to his small size. He was the incredibly shrinking president, and America had shrunk along with him.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - JustOneMan
Yawwnnnnnn...Bush lied...Bush lied yada yada yada..
Dont you ever get tired of the same thing over and over again,,,geezzz
This however is histerical...
"Then there is the other America "- the America of “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes” and Bill Clinton " the America that cannot be scared, the America that lives large and is fun and flaunts it, baby."
A fat bloated president who's getting blow jobs from a fat pig in the oval office while Bin Laden was planning his attacks on the US...whoopie..livin large eh...
Me thinks you may be a "little to light" in the loafers on this one...
2 - zingzing
and you? do you get tired of saying the same thing over and over? "yawn," "yer gay," etc?
3 - MCH
"What a delight: Jane Russell, built like an oversexed battleship, with tattas bigger than brownstones … Marilyn Monroe looking almost petite next to Jane, even though her gazoombas could poke a man’s eyes out at twenty paces … and the razzmatazz pizzazz, the love of living high, the gold-digging, the irony about self, the shrewdness and sexiness and sass of Jane and Marilyn, their gowns clinging to them like lickable icing on sumptuous cake..."
Stop, please, before you send RJ to the closet with a hard-on and a bag of Cheetos...
4 - Arch Conservative
UMMM I didn't see justoneman call anyone gay zingzing. I do however se ethe same tired catchphrases coming from people like Adam.
One would think that that was Adam's only reason for getting out of bed in the morning, to bash Bush. Quite sad really.
Oh and if Bush brain were the size of a pea it would still be ten times bigger than either Bill or Hillary Clinton's heart.
Yeah Bill clinton felt our pain all right. Simultaneously causing his own family nothing but pain and embarassment. The man is a first class scumbag as are most of the people that adore him so.
5 - JustOneMan
Zing..its obvious you have some sort of gay persecution and/or guilt complex..rather that address the issues you feel compelled to bring up non-related issues of sexual orientation...
Adam you forgot Judy Garland and Cher...
6 - zingzing
"light in the loafers" is a common euphamism/bit of name calling referring to the homosexuality of its target.
oh... bill clinton has no heart... sad days. bill clinton had sex with a woman other than his wife. oh dear. cheating's fun. who cares? that was so many years ago... come up with something fresh. what, no democrats making big enough asses of themselves these days? look around.
and gw is far from perfect himself. and not too bright either. and a bad choice for president, even from the republicans. what will they come up with next?
7 - zingzing
oh no! a guilt complex!? me? really? fuck! fuckcfkcufkcufkcuck! fuck!
you called the guy gay. you always call people gay. even people that are gay you call gay as if it is some insult. gay gay gay is all we ever hear from you. "non-related issue..."
THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT! you always bring it up, even if it is unrelated, like your some fucking 8-year-old on the playground! fucking grow up! it's tiresome.
8 - Richard Brodie
bill clinton had sex with a woman other than his wife
He had sex with a little girl.
9 - zingzing
no he didn't.
10 - Richard Brodie
A little girl named Monica Lewinksy.
11 - Adam Ash
Monica was a big girl, and I agree with Clinton that he may not have had sex with her, since he didn't stick his winkie in her hotspot, but only got a blowjob from her. If you think sex is actual fucking, he didn't have sex with her. It depends on what your definition of sex is.
12 - Richard Brodie
Lewinsky was 22. Clinton was 50. I don't give a damn what arbitrary age the government sets to demarcate "adulthood", the fact is this girl did not have the wisdom of a fully grown woman, and a MUCH older man took advantage of her immaturity.
13 - Clavos
Lewinsky was 22. Clinton was 50. I don't give a damn what arbitrary age the government sets to demarcate "adulthood", the fact is this girl did not have the wisdom of a fully grown woman, and a MUCH older man took advantage of her immaturity.
At 22, I was in combat in Vietnam, so I guess the above statement would also apply to Lyndon Johnson.
14 - Richard Brodie
That depends. If you "volunteered" then you were only taken advantage of. If you were drafted then Lyndon raped you.
15 - zingzing
stop spouting bullshit. age of consent in that case would be 18. there is no "taking advantage" of a 22-year-old woman. jesus. that's just silly.
16 - Adam Ash
Richard Brodie:
Come on. If a woman of 22 can't decide whose dick she wants to suck, who can? Does she have to ask your permission first? Are you trying to infantilize women? Don't be such a sexist.
17 - Arch Conservative
The only thing Bill Clinton has ever cared about is building a legacy. he wants to be remembered in a certain way. that's why he didn't fucking do anything while he was president. he was afraid if he made decisions people would judge him harshly. he's a disgrace.
18 - Al Barger
Again Mr Ash with the absolutely unearned air of smug superiority. This is one of the stupidest things you've written yet- which is pretty stiff competition. I too like movie stars with nice tits, but watching old movies and humping the office staff won't do a goddam thing to stop people from coming in and killing US.
George Bush is president, and his job is defending the nation- not being a movie critic or head pimp. I'm all in favor of partying and living large, but leave the partying to Snoop Dogg and Hef - the president is on OUR time.
Other corruption and constant lies aside, Bill Clinton did jack squat in eight years to seriously deal with Al Qaeda. He merrily went about "generously" sharing his sperm and generally testing the limits of how much sleaze he could get away with, and did nothing serious to protect US.
Then Bush gets slammed with 9/11 a few months into office, and he has to be the responsible adult doing things to deal seriously with the threats that Clinton was lucky enough to be able to get by doing nothing about. He's had to make the tough commitments to put our troops in harm's way to deal with the bad guys that Clinton wouldn't.
Apparently, Bush is a stupid pea-brain in your book because he fears Islamic radicals. In fact, fear of people bent on killing you is totally rational, and he'd be an idiot not to be taking it seriously.
Which isn't to say that Bush is above criticism. You could come up with good arguments that going into Iraq wasn't the best approach - not that I've seen you come up with any other. But it's tough to know where to begin or how to approach this, and the lack of another 9/11 type attack after five years is significant evidence that the administration has been doing some things right.
The one approach guaranteed not to work is the Clinton version - fiddling while Rome burns.
19 - Richard Brodie
Don't be such a sexist.
You guys seem to arguing that every 22 year old is equally mature. But in fact some 22 year olds have the maturity of a 15 year old, and that applies in a non-sexist way to both genders.
20 - pleasexcusetheinterruption12
Some 50 year olds have the maturity of 15 year olds too Brodie.. what's your point Brodie? Should the only people getting some be the grandmas? But then how did they become grandmas?
21 - Richard Brodie
Some 50 year olds have the maturity of 15 year olds too Brodie.. what's your point Brodie?
I guess you just made it for me. Bill and Monica were a perfect match!!!
22 - STM
I'm not American ... but we all had a good laugh over here when we heard Bill Clinton - who, in truth, was a far more palatable leader of the free world than Bush - had been caught out getting a polish.
I'd imagine he's not the only one who's done it, but geez, he was the president of the United States. And no matter what you say, he lied. To the world. On TV. Silly, Bill. Now look at the result.
If you can't keep it in your pants, the rule of thumb, according to a mate of mine, is you do it with someone who's got more to lose than you if the cat gets out of the bag.
Which on the world stage at the time would only have left The Queen, who doubtless wouldn't have been interested, Anna Nicole Smith, who possibly might have been, or Madonna (who knows?).
23 - Bliffle
"George Bush is president, and his job is defending the nation- not being a movie critic or head pimp. I'm all in favor of partying and living large, but leave the partying to Snoop Dogg and Hef - the president is on OUR time."
Bush ignored the Aug 2001 PDB, then diverted the just pursuit of OBL into the stupid invasion of Iraq. That's pretty poor 'defending the nation'. And Bush has the worst attendance record of any president I can think of. He's lazy and uninvolved. Doesn't apply himself to his job.
24 - Nancy
Inept, lazy, and vacuous all his life, Junior is no more successful as president than he was as owner of a football team or as governor of Texas. He has been a failure all his life, and only attained the positions he's held because Mummy & Poppy bought them for him with the help of their billionaire buddies - especially those in Saudi Arabia. But nothing has changed: he's still a failure; only this time Mummy & Poppy can't buy his way out. Adam is right: small in stature, with a little nasal whining voice & chimplike mien, he would be pitiful & pathetic if he weren't in such a position that his incompetence has endangered and possibly destroyed the US & its people. He's a menace only our worst enemies could wish on us. As Cheney would say, therefore those who support him obviously support America's enemies, and have more sympatico with the terrorists than with US citizens, giving them aid & comfort by their mindless loyalty & credibility to this cretin.
25 - Al Barger
Bliffle, seriously- eight years of Clinton ignoring attack after attack, and you're going to pin the blame on Bush for overlooking one memo. And what exactly should he have done at that point if he were taking the memo seriously?
And this very tired argument about going into Iraq instead of looking for Bin Laden is just dumb - as if we couldn't do both. What, you think we should stop what we're doing everywhere to devote the entire US military to a manhunt for ONE schmuck? That's really just reaching for an excuse to do NOTHING. Lob a couple of cruise missles now and again in the general direction of somewhere he was reported to have been at some point and then pretend like you've done something, then go back to poking the help. That's how we got to 9/11 in the first place.
Again, perhaps Iraq wasn't the best approach to trying to tackle this problem. OK, what would you do instead? If you say that we should have gone into Iran instead, I'd be sympathetic to that argument. But I suspect that in fact you all would not begin to support anything like that.
Hey, I know: Let's flap the jaws at the UN some more. If that doesn't work, we'll get really tough: We'll elect John Edwards president and have him file a massive class action lawsuit against Bin Laden and the Iranian mullahs and all them other bad guys. That'll stop 'em in their tracks.
Or there's Nancy's approach to defending the country, which would appear to consist of projecting the frustrations of your failed and pathetic life onto the leader of the free world, and piling more ridiculous Freudian nonsense on top. I might suggest, however, that as comforting as it may be to you personally, hating Daddy is probably an inadequate strategy for defending the nation against homicidal jihadists.
Any of you Bush-haters have any actual alternative strategy beyond calling the president names?