Monday, April 07, 2008

"Hi! How y'all doin'? Wow! Fun to be here!"

April 4, 2008:



April 4, 1968:



The old man on the far left appears to be close to tears. (Why else would the other man be grasping his wrist like that?) And no wonder. He knows where he is, and when.

But where did the possible future President acquire her demeanour? And what did she think she was doing? Attending a St. Paddy's Day parade? Receiving an Oscar? Opening a fucking restaurant?

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.


Cheney at Auschwitz, dressed to kill.

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:15 PM

    But of course she is happy to be there. What happened in that motel ultimately made the Clintons possible.
    The inappropriateness of Clinton's behaviour may not be entirely accidental. There is a constituency that appreciates such gestures.
    Compare to this, where Bush makes a reference to Dr. 'Meth' King. Just another one of poor George's bloopers, I'm sure.

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  2. I had never seen that clip before. New lows.

    Other Presidential candidates were also paying their respects last Friday:

    "McCain, who in 1983 voted against legislation to create a federal holiday on King's birthday, also drew on his memory of King's death, which he learned about while in a prisoner-of-war camp in North Vietnam.

    The Arizona senator said he felt "just as everyone else [everyone else?] did back home, only perhaps even more uncertain and alarmed for my country in the darkness that was then enclosed around me and my fellow captives. . . . The enemy had correctly calculated that the news from Memphis would deeply wound morale and leave us worried and afraid for our country."

    McCain apologized Friday for his vote 25 years ago, explaining: "We can all be a little late sometimes in doing the right thing."

    http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-campaign5apr05,1,5537565.story

    In 1998, fifteen years after opposing a public holiday in King's memory, McCain was still referring to the Vietnamese as 'gooks'. (I wonder how he referred to King?) -

    "The racist and disparaging term, popularized by GIs during the war, occurs repeatedly in a 1973 U.S. News & World Report account penned by McCain after his release from prison. "The 'gooks' were bombarding us with antiwar quotes from people in high places back in Washington," he wrote, referring to the propaganda that his captors gave him. A quarter of a century later, while speaking with reporters aboard the Straight Talk Express in October, McCain was still calling Vietnamese "gooks"--and according to a reporter who was there, no one called him on it. It's enough to make you wonder whether the reporters were thinking: Well, this guy spent five years in a prison camp, so he can say anything he wants. Roger Simon, writing in U.S. News, cited the incident and added: "John McCain says 'gooks,' and who's going to tell him not to?" "

    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000103/dreyfuss/3

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  3. Anonymous4:58 PM

    She thought she was running for President.

    ReplyDelete