Bush Taunts Children, Disabled, Blind, African-Americans...
In Cleveland on Tuesday, President Bush offered Americans yet another example of the heartwarming leadership style that has so endeared him to 26% of Americans. At his latest invitation-only event, Bush made a 13-year old girl cry. Of course, making fun of children is all in day's work for George W. Bush. After all, as his past teasing of the blind, the disabled, U.S. soldiers and blacks confirms, President Bush laughs at the expense of most Americans.
ThinkProgress tells the tale of Bush's failed outreach to the youth voter:
Jessica Hackerd, a "13-year old blonde-headed girl," asked Bush what his "next step with the immigration bill" will be. "Mr. Bush's sarcastic reply - a wry 'yeah, thanks' - drew laughter from the crowd of 400. But the attention caused young Jessica...to immediately tear up. 'No, it's a great question. No, I appreciate that,' Mr. Bush said, as he saw Jessica's reaction.'
That, as they say, was just Bush being Bush. In May 2006, President Bush made a bizarre remark which charmed disability advocates everywhere. Pitching his troubled Medicare prescription plan in Florida, President Bush said to a man in a wheelchair, "You look mighty comfortable." Six weeks later, Bush chided Los Angeles Times reporter Peter Wallsten, who is afflicted with Stargardt's disease and legally blind, for wearing sunglasses during the President's press conference:
THE PRESIDENT: Are you going to ask that question with shades on?
WALLSTEN: I can take them off.
THE PRESIDENT: I'm interested in the shade look, seriously.
WALLSTEN: All right, I'll keep it, then.
THE PRESIDENT: For the viewers, there's no sun.
WALLSTEN: I guess it depends on your perspective.
George W. Bush's schadenfreude streak allows him to pleasure in the plight of the guilty and innocent alike. In 1999, Governor Bush laughed off his looming execution of Karla Faye Tucker, mimicking with condemned death row inmate with his trademark smirk, "Please don't kill me!" And while pitching his Social Security privatization scheme in February 2005, President Bush told a 57 year-old woman who described working three jobs that her story was "uniquely American" and "fantastic."
It was during that same failed campaign to sell his plan to undo Social Security that President Bush displayed his great pleasure in perpetuating stereotypes of African-Americans. President Bush used his January 12, 2005 town hall meeting to sell his Social Security privatization plan to a hand-picked African-American audience:
"Another interesting idea...is a personal savings account...which can't be used to bet on the lottery, or a dice game, or the track.
"Secondly, the interesting -- there's a -- African American males die sooner than other males do, which means the system is inherently unfair to a certain group of people."
As Perrspectives has detailed before, when it comes to George W. Bush's sense of humor, the joke is on us. In October 2000, then candidate Bush used the annual Al Smith Dinner in New York to make light of the nation's yawning income gap, laughing "This is an impressive crowd - the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elites; I call you my base." In March 2006, Bush chided the press for its coverage of Dick Cheney, joking "Good Lord, you'd thought he shot somebody or something." The President tried to shrug off his Katrina disaster and the embarrassing Dubai ports deal at Lynne Cheney's expense, "Lynne, I think you're doing a heck of a job. Although I have to say you dropped the ball big time on that Dubai deal."
But it was Bush's presentation at the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner showed truly his contempt for the truth and for the suffering of the American people. His tasteless White House slideshow made light of the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Coming one year and hundreds of American dead and wounded after the invasion of Iraq, President Bush the cut-up hoped to regale the audience with his White House hijinx. As David Corn of The Nation reported:
Bush notes he spends "a lot of time on the phone listening to our European allies." Then we see a photo of him on the phone with a finger in his ear. But at one point, Bush showed a photo of himself looking for something out a window in the Oval Office, and he said, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere." The audience laughed. I grimaced. But that wasn't the end of it. After a few more slides, there was a shot of Bush looking under furniture in the Oval Office. "Nope," he said. "No weapons over there." More laughter. Then another picture of Bush searching in his office: "Maybe under here." Laughter again.
As it turns out, of course, President Bush can dish it out but he can't take it. When Stephen Colbert hilariously lampooned the President during his 2006 White House Correspondents Association dinner, a stone-faced Bush could barely muster a handshake.
That's why in Cleveland, apparently, President Bush decided it was better to pick on someone his own size.
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That's simply unbelievable. What a pig.
Posted by Dave on July 11, 2007 3:13 PMOur Mr. Bush. What a charmer!
Posted by Mooser on July 11, 2007 5:58 PMNo wonder the twins started drinking as teens and Laura is permanently zonked out on Xanax.
Posted by e_five on July 13, 2007 7:55 AMWell, what do you expect? President Bush doesn't seem to have any feelings for those who are outside his sphere of reality.
Posted by Kelvin Phillips on July 20, 2007 11:02 PMAs a visually and hearing impaired African-American woman I take triple exception to this Supreme Court elected, sharp as a bowling ball space case.. My understanding is that the Bush administration will go down in history as the Wizard of Oz administration. Dick needs a heat and George needs a brain.
Posted by Thankgodandgreyhound on April 14, 2008 11:35 AMHey Thankgodandgreyhound....wear your damn glasses when you are typing. You wrote Dick needs a heat...I believe you mean 'heart'.
Also, I agree with you about Bush...that is why I commented about him at the MTV Video Music Awards last night and said, ""It was nice of you to let that retarded cowboy have a go at it."
It is great to live in a country where only liberals can be negative and spew hate. If Conservatives speak out against us or liberal policies...well they are just mean, hateful bigots...but if us liberals do it...well, we can show them that we have the right to be 'open minded' and of course, a double standard is our right as a liberal commie living in America...Right???
Posted by Russell Brand on September 7, 2008 11:50 PM