George Bush wrote a book!

[BenBurch]

Sucks.

I've heard rumors that George was bisexual, but I always figured him for a top.

 

[Foggy of the Fogbow]

Well, he was right about it being funnier if Foghorn had used the speech pattern that he was famous for. I think you, he and I agree on that and since three people agree on it and it is on the internet it has now been established objectively that that is a fact.

.
Utter nonsense. Two points:

First, I know this will come as a shock, but I'm not really the real Foghorn Leghorn. I just run around wearing this silly rooster costume. In real life, I'm a husband and father, a business owner, an entrepreneur, a capitalist, a liberal Democrat, a college graduate, a retired attorney, a taxpayer, a homeowner, and many other things that the real Foggy never was. I'm actually quite a bit more complicated character than the real Foggy.

I picked Foggy 7 years ago because he was my favorite cartoon character, because I have a very loud voice, and because I live in the South. But I mostly write about politics and current events, and I write based on who I am in real life, so the most I do to be "in character" is I slide in and out of usin' a bit of vernacular, whenever I have a hankerin' to.

See? That's logical, but unexpected. You didn't expect it, anyway.

And if'n y'all don't like it, you're cordially invited to use the little wheel on your mousie to scroll past my posts.

Yeah, I know he ain't the real Foggy. He's just
some liberal freak who's been riding my ass
for the past godonlyknows how long.​

Second, I write mostly for my own amusement, not yours.

That's not going to change any time soon.

 

[davefoc]

.
Utter nonsense. Two points:

First, I know this will come as a shock, but I'm not really the real Foghorn Leghorn. I just run around wearing this silly rooster costume. In real life, I'm a husband and father, a business owner, an entrepreneur, a capitalist, a liberal Democrat, a college graduate, a retired attorney, a taxpayer, a homeowner, and many other things that the real Foggy never was. I'm actually quite a bit more complicated character than the real Foggy.

I picked Foggy 7 years ago because he was my favorite cartoon character, because I have a very loud voice, and because I live in the South. But I mostly write about politics and current events, and I write based on who I am in real life, so the most I do to be "in character" is I slide in and out of usin' a bit of vernacular, whenever I have a hankerin' to.

See? That's logical, but unexpected. You didn't expect it, anyway.

And if'n y'all don't like it, you're cordially invited to use the little wheel on your mousie to scroll past my posts.

http://i228.photobucket.com/albums/ee232/foghorn_leghorn_photos/bush/Bushworried.jpg
Yeah, I know he ain't the real Foggy. He's just
some liberal freak who's been riding my ass
for the past godonlyknows how long.​

Second, I write mostly for my own amusement, not yours.

That's not going to change any time soon.

I misread an earlier post of yours. I thought you were responding to Brainster's post positively where he mimiced Foghorn's speech pattern. You were actually responding to puppycow. My apologies for that. As an aside I found Brainster's Foghorn mimicing post funny.

You did notice where I said that I thought this was some of the best humor I've ever seen posted on the JREF forum? I'll go farther I think it is the best, period.

You seem to have taken offense at what I have written. I am not quite sure I understand why. When Brainster had such a negative reaction to your bit, I tried to understand why I had so much more of a positive reaction to it than he did. Was it based purely on the fact that I basically agree with the underlying sentiment of the bit and Brainster doesn't? Was the humor just routine Bush bashing that a Republican partisan was going to be offended at or was there more creativity that at least some Republican partisans might find entertaining?

My thought about it after going back and reviewing it in a more detailed way was that it was indeed more than routine Bush bashing and that at least some Republican partisans might find the wit and creativity in the bit appealing. At the same time I also noted some areas in the bit that didn't mesh with my own particular sensitivity about what I saw as the bit's mean spiritness.

I also noted that I was disappointed that Bush and Foghorn didn't part as buddies. I thought about that for a bit. I think one of the things I found appealing about the bit was it set up the notion that Foghorn and Bush had been long term acquaintances and that these little exchanges had gone on in the past. And then all of a sudden at the end of this exchange they're never going to get together again? Just a little moment of sadness there for me.

 

[WildCat]

We were told that we were in DANGER if we didn't invade Iraq.

Are you Saudi or Kuwaiti?

 

[Brainster]

I misread an earlier post of yours. I thought you were responding to Brainster's post positively where he mimiced Foghorn's speech pattern. You were actually responding to puppycow. My apologies for that. As an aside I found Brainster's Foghorn mimicing post funny.

You did notice where I said that I thought this was some of the best humor I've ever seen posted on the JREF forum? I'll go farther I think it is the best, period.

You seem to have taken offense at what I have written. I am not quite sure I understand why. When Brainster had such a negative reaction to your bit, I tried to understand why I had so much more of a positive reaction to it than he did. Was it based purely on the fact that I basically agree with the underlying sentiment of the bit and Brainster doesn't? Was the humor just routine Bush bashing that a Republican partisan was going to be offended at or was there more creativity that at least some Republican partisans might find some entertaining?

My thought about it after going back and reviewing it in a more detailed way was that it was indeed more than routine Bush bashing and that at least some Republican partisans might find the wit and creativity in the bit appealing. At the same time I also noted some areas in the bit that didn't mesh with my own particular sensitivity about what I saw as the bit's mean spiritness.

I also noted that I was disappointed that Bush and Foghorn didn't part as buddies. I thought about that for a bit. I think one of the things I found appealing about the bit was it set up the notion that Foghorn and Bush had been long term acquaintances and that these little exchanges had gone on in the past. And then all of a sudden at the end of this exchange they're never going to get together again? Just a little moment of sadness there for me.

What he's failing to understand is that using the image of the cartoon character made us think it was supposed to be a discussion between Foghorn Leghorn and Bush. But you see, it was actually a discussion between Foggy of the Fogbow, the JREF poster, and Bush. Hence, when he uses the word "Dude" a lot, it is mimicking Foggy's speech patterns.

Of course this is another level where the piece fails to amuse on the logic scale. What's the old comedy writer saw? Abuse 'em, refuse 'em, but never confuse 'em.

Again, I'm not saying that humor can't be constructed with "Bush is dumb" as the theme. But it's gotta be the "logical" part, not the unexpected part. Perhaps an example would help. I heard a radio skit a few years ago three characters: Bush, a critic and a supporter. The critic says something negative about Bush and the supporter responds, "That's preposterous!" Bush chimes in, "Yeah, that's prepotamous!" Funny because the unexpected part is the way Bush mangled the word and the logical part is that Bush does mangle words.

 

[Aoidoi]

He's got a degree in History and a masters in business management. He can also fly a plane.

How many degrees do you have and how many planes can you fly?

Anyone can fly a plane.

... walking away from the landing is the tricky part.

 

[Foggy of the Fogbow]

You seem to have taken offense at what I have written.

.
No, not at all. Go read the very last part of #50. I still stand by that.

I was still reacting to Brainster's utterly bizarre definition of what is "required" for something to be funny. When I said "Great formula, though," I was being logical, but unexpected.

But the bizarre, rigid, inflexible, creepy and just plain wrong formula didn't work as advertised. I should have added these:

Great formula, though.

At the same time I also noted some areas in the bit that didn't mesh with my own particular sensitivity about what I saw as the bit's mean spiritness.

.
I stand by my assessment in the OP that Bush was the worst president in the history of this great nation. That's because of the opportunities he missed as much as for the fact that he started the stupidest war in U.S. history and did so many other things that struck me as unAmerican.

He HURT my country. He deeply hurt my country.

I was always against impeachment. I didn't want Cheney to take over, and I thought we'd survive the 8 years somehow.

But we almost didn't. I definitely DO have a mean spirit toward him, and I probably always will.

I also noted that I was disappointed that Bush and Foghorn didn't part as buddies.

.
Well, now you know why. I despise him, for many, many reasons.

I think one of the things I found appealing about the bit was it set up the notion that Foghorn and Bush had been long term acquaintances and that these little exchanges had gone on in the past.

.
They had. I've done probably more than a dozen such "chats" between myself and Bush, on other forums. But we never end as friends.

It's been a long time since I did one. He's been gone almost two years now. But he popped back up in the news, and once again he did something I found just reprehensible -- he refused to repudiate the rabid right-wingnuts who ginned up the controversy about the "Ground Zero Mosque" that isn't a mosque and isn't at Ground Zero, when Matt Lauer gave him the chance.

I know why, of course. The only people who would respect him for jumping in on the side of the community center are the people who reviled him all those years.

In other words, I'd respect him if he jumped in on the right side of that issue -- the side that comports with our basic American value of tolerance of other religions. But his base wouldn't. His base really has gone over to Sarah Palin the moron bitch.

And then all of a sudden at the end of this exchange they're never going to get together again? Just a little moment of sadness there for me.

.
Sorry about that. Can't please everybody. I hope he disappears again and never resurfaces. He should hide himself from decent Americans, after his performance as president. So no, I don't expect to get together with him again.

On the other hand, I haven't deleted all those great photos from my Photobucket, so I'll be ready if he crawls out from under his rock again ...

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I like Gawker's take on this nothing burger of a story:



It's pretty much like saying that you plagiarized Puppycow's post.

I just saw this on Slate's "Say What?"

"If we have multiiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional ground forces. That's an important lesson learned from Afghanistan."
—General Tommy Franks, in "American Soldier"


"If we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional ground forces. That's an important lesson learned from Afghanistan."
—George W. Bush, in "Decision Points"

Are you saying Bush was quoting Franks in his book (and giving it as a quote giving credit to Franks)? If so, Slate's punctuation is inaccurate (and misleading).

If not, it's plagiarism.

 

[davefoc]

Foggy of the Fogbow,

To talk to the substance of your post and not about the comedy bit itself:

I agree that Bush was the worst president of my life (I'm 61). I think that is about as certain as we can be about these things.

I don't dislike him as much as you do. First, it was a very strange presidency. Cheney and Rove seemed to have far more to do with the direction of the presidency than Bush. I think both Cheney and Rove figured out how to manipulate Bush to derive the power they desired. Anybody in an organization that has an authority level that exceeds their responsibility level is dangerous and both Cheney and Rove got to make a lot of decisions without ever having to take responsibility for them. The fact that Bush ceded so much of his power and was so thoroughly manipulated by Rove and Cheney supports the notion that he should never have been president but it doesn't make me hate the guy.

That is not to say that there weren't aspects of Bush that I didn't like. I just thought there was something not quite right with the guy by the time he became president and that makes me somewhat sympathetic to him. I also think he actually improved as president near the end of his term when he finally began to function as the president and the power of Rove and Cheney had been diminished or perhaps eliminated.

But I say improved only in the sense that he did better than he did in his earlier presidency. We still had the ludicrous and harmful car company bailouts that began under Bush and that were driven by either pure incompetence or pure corruption or some combination of both. No where in his presidency did he address the looming bank problems. But the management of the Iraq occupation moved from one of crony driven corruption to one run by somebody that actually gave a crap about doing a good job for the people involved.

The torture thing was sad for me on a few levels. The idea that we're Americans and we don't torture people was one of the things that made me proud to be an American. That has been taken away forever. It turns out that we're nothing special there. When somebody in power thinks that a little torture would be a good thing, we do it. It was also disappointing to see how many of my fellow Americans were just fine with it.

And then there is the ever present narcissism. On the one hand, I can see being pretty cheesed off about that and not liking the guy a lot just because of that. But then, maybe the guy is really just not quite right and how much are you going to blame him for that?

 

[GrouchoMarxist]

I just saw this on Slate's "Say What?"

Are you saying Bush was quoting Franks in his book (and giving it as a quote giving credit to Franks)? If so, Slate's punctuation is inaccurate (and misleading).

If not, it's plagiarism.

"Bush writes: "Tommy told the national security team that he was working to apply the same concept of a light footprint to Iraq... 'If we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional grounds forces,' he said. 'That's an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.' I had a lot of concerns. ... I asked the team to keep working on the plan. 'We should remain optimistic that diplomacy and international pressure will succeed in disarming the regime,' I said at the end of the meeting. 'But we cannot allow weapons of mass destruction to fall into the hands of terrorists. I will not allow that to happen.'""

 

[Foggy of the Fogbow]

I agree that Bush was the worst president of my life (I'm 61).

.
I'll be 58 next month. If my math is right, you first voted 1968, and I voted for the first time in 1972. So we're both including Nixon and Carter as better presidents than George W. Bush.

Telling, that.

... car company bailouts ... looming bank problems ... the Iraq occupation ... torture ... narcissism ...

.
I would add the domestic spying ... Every Child Left Behind, which has an adverse effect on my own children's education today ... the imprisonment of people without charges, in particular the U.S. citizen Jose Padilla ... and so much more.

People are always calling Obama a narcissist. I think there needs to be a different word. Yes, both of them are quite satisfied with themselves. But real narcissists hate to expose themselves to any kind of criticism. Have you noticed whether people criticize Presidents Obama and Bush?

Cheney and Rove seemed to have far more to do with the direction of the presidency than Bush.

.
But it was his JOB to step up and be the president.

In any event, I'm glad to see we can find some common ground, even if we're not exactly marching in lockstep. On this glorious fall morn, I'm not going to steep myself in rancor. He's gone, we survived (barely), and I'm more interested to see what the future brings.

So here's something positive I can say - the only positive thing I can think of to say - about our 43rd president:

He was really good at cutting brush on his ranch.

At least, that's the story I got.

 

[Brainster]

I just saw this on Slate's "Say What?"

Are you saying Bush was quoting Franks in his book (and giving it as a quote giving credit to Franks)? If so, Slate's punctuation is inaccurate (and misleading).

The Huffington Post article that started this issue makes it clear that is indeed the case:

Bush writes: "Tommy told the national security team that he was working to apply the same concept of a light footprint to Iraq... 'If we have multiple, highly skilled Special Operations forces identifying targets for precision-guided munitions, we will need fewer conventional grounds forces,' he said. 'That's an important lesson learned from Afghanistan.'

See that little "he said" in there? Sort of undermines the plagiarism argument, doesn't it? You can argue that Bush's researchers checked other sources to make sure that when he quoted other people, he got the words right. But that's fact-checking, something that Slate needs to be more careful about.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

How many degrees do you have and how many planes can you fly?

Funny, I first saw this post in a quote, and I thought you were talking about the 9/11 terrorists!

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

The Huffington Post article that started this issue makes it clear that is indeed the case:



See that little "he said" in there? Sort of undermines the plagiarism argument, doesn't it? You can argue that Bush's researchers checked other sources to make sure that when he quoted other people, he got the words right. But that's fact-checking, something that Slate needs to be more careful about.

OK, I agree it's not a cut and dried case of plagiarism (and I was suspicious of the Slate's punctuation which was wrong and misleading), however there's still a bit of a problem unless Bush cited Franks' book as the source. If not otherwise specified, these kind of quotes in a memoir are meant to be the author's account of events. Pulling them word for word from Franks' book without saying so isn't legitimate.

The Huffington Post article gives other examples of both this sort ("literary misdemeanors") as well as more serious ones which it calls "high crimes against the craft of memoir". The worst one, apparently, is that Bush describes a meeting between Karzai and a Tajik warlord. The meeting is narrated as if Bush were present and relating it from memory, even though the memoir says he was not. So where did those quotations come from?

It turns out the account including non-quoted narration, was lifted almost verbatim from Ahmed Rashi's "The Mess in Afghanistan". The excerpt, the Huggington Post notes, was in a review of the piece, something Bush might have come across without even having read the article.

At any rate, I find the admission that he condoned water boarding to be of greater importance than his literary dishonesty.