George W. Bush Live From Facebook 372
tekgoblin writes "Facebook has just announced that George W. Bush is going to be present November 29th to answer questions about his new book, Decision Points. The discussion will happen on Facebook Live at 2PM PST."
whatcouldpossiblygowrong (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure this will be a quiet affair. Well balanced, with well thought out talking points and few interruptions.
Also, could someone ring the nurse for me? The pink elephants have begun playing the banjo again...
Question #1 (Score:3, Insightful)
After adding over $1T to the federal deficit to fund a sham war in Iraq that has cost over 4400 American lives (http://antiwar.com/casualties/) and over 100,000 civilian casualties (http://www.iraqbodycount.org/) -- how do you sleep at night?
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W: Like a baby. Next question?
The Question I'd Put to Him (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:The Question I'd Put to Him (Score:4, Insightful)
Good question...
But what makes you think you'd get anything other than a carefully sanitized political answer?
I mean... It isn't like you're the first one to come up with this question. I've see in, and variations on it, asked countless times. And the answer has always been some vague form of "no".
Now, I'm not certain that "no" is a lie... It may very well be that he had other motivations. But the vague and political nature of the non-answer always leaves me feeling like there's more to the story.
I'd love to get a straight answer out of him. Hell, I'd love to get a straight answer out of just about any politician. But I don't think this Facebook interview thing is going to suddenly grant my wishes.
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Well, he couldn't really object if you tried waterboarding him.
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I seriously doubt the question would even make it to him - I'm sure he has people screening them.
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The short version: "So why did we invade Iraq, really?" If I had an interview with him, that's what I'd ask. And I'd keep asking it until he'd exhausted his BS answers, and finally got to the truth.
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The short version: "So why did we invade Iraq, really?" If I had an interview with him, that's what I'd ask. And I'd keep asking it until he'd exhausted his BS answers, and finally got to the truth.
And are you going to pout when he walks out rather than put up with your nonsense?
Let me put it this way, you aren't likely to get anything other than the "BS answers" unless you can do "enhanced interrogation techniques" on him. Even then, it's not unlikely that those BS answers are why he did it. For me, the more interesting targets are the people who changed their stories when the old ones grew stale. For example, I knew the US couldn't find WMDs in Iraq when in April, 2003 Wolfowitz changed his story
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If you watched the 2004 presidential debates, you'd know he never exhausts his BS answers. Ask him a question and he'll just keep repeating very minor variations on the same answer until you get tired of asking. He's like a bipedal, autistic pit bull.
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Let's be honest, the guy had a ton of intelligence on his side
For a second there I misread you and thought you were saying George W Bush was intelligent.
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I guess the fact that Iraq floats on a sea of oil and deposing the existing government also have the ancillary benefit of being a huge windfall for White-House and Congress "defense" industry cronies never entered your foolish mind.
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I suspect the real answer is "Because Dick Cheney said so." Cheney and Rumsfeld were the two with the hard-ons for Iraq. Bush Jr. was just a weak-minded dupe to them. And he pretty much stayed that way until 2006, when he finally realized (way too late) that listening to them might not be in his best interest. To my mind, Bush isn't evil so much as a simple fool.
You don't fault a moron for being used by much smarter (and much more sinister) men. You just pity him.
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You're one of those people who still don't understand why we have troops in Afganistan I bet.
Kindly elucidate then, because I have no idea other than the fact that the Taliban were seen as friends of Al Qaeda, and the US was desperate to be seen to do something tough after 9/11.
Keep the Aspidistra Flying (Score:3)
Bush on Facebook? I feel like I am a character trapped in an Orwell novel still in its first revision.
Rarely is the questioned asked (Score:2)
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Is our children learning?
No, they aren't. They will still continue to use FB, in spite of another proof of predatory behavior: Bush will be there to sell his book.
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http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Is+our+children+learning%3F [lmgtfy.com]
Too obscure, perhaps?
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Our children is learning... and they will grow up and gather from all 57 states (even those who speak Austrian) to serve their country in the military by becoming corpsemen. And on Memorial Day we will gather around and offer thanks to those fallen members of the military among us. Unless it's above our pay grade, in which case we can treat asthma with a breathalyzer.
History is kind to presidents (Score:2, Insightful)
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No softballs, please. (Score:5, Funny)
Ask for his opinion about Farmville Subsidies.
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No fair asking questions designed to trap idiots, liberal media!
Has to be on Facebook (Score:2)
Bush's public appearances will have to be on Facebook because if he leaves the country he'll be arrested for ordering the invasion of a sovereign nation and the torture of people.
"Decision Points" - is there a shittier book name? (Score:2)
are there any book names that re shittier than this ?
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Funny sign someone put up related to his book (Score:2)
We have some activist neighbors here in Ithaca, NY. They put out a sign in their front yard for motorists to see. It says, "Have you heard about Bush's new novel?"
My question (Score:3, Insightful)
In hindsight, failing to prevent 9/11, invading Iraq under false pretenses, and ending with the biggest financial collapse since the Great Depression, do you think you did a good job as President of the United States?
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Republican fool:
Clinton's administration warned Bush/Cheney that the Qaeda were going to attack soon, because Clinton's administration was actively tracking and working against the Qaeda (despite a Republican Congress waving a blue dress to interfere with bombing Qaeda camps). But Bush/Cheney dismissed those warnings, and stopped protecting us from the Qaeda. Even during 2001 Clinton holdovers and the continuing intel showed a specific attack was about to be made, and Bush/Cheney ignored it. After the attac
Wouldn't George ... (Score:2)
... be more appropriate on FacePalm?
I got the shock of my life (Score:2)
I thought that either we were stuck in a time warp or America was having some kind of Republican coup. The really bad thing is I couldn't make up my mind which would be worse.
Mr. President! Mr. President! (Score:3, Funny)
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Especially since the looney left will ask all the hard questions, which Shrub will avoid by saying, "It's in the book. You should read the book."
I wouldn't expect him to actually answer anything that he could be indicted for with the actual truth.
Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, I do know I've just paraphrased my sig.
Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore Ronald Reagan, practically a saint among the right, was the one who pushed for the US ratification of the UN convention against torture, saying:
"The United States participated actively and effectively in the negotiation of the Convention . It marks a significant step in the development during this century of international measures against torture and other inhuman treatment or punishment. Ratification of the Convention by the United States will clearly express United States opposition to torture, an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today. The core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.' Each State Party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."
Even if we have not the slightest interest in giving the ICC the time of day, we have a legal obligation to prosecute torturers we find on our soil, and in some cases to extradite them to the jurisdictions where their crimes took place, assuming extradition agreements are in place.
We can only assume that Ronald Reagan was actually a soft-on-terror deep-cover liberal...
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"...US has punished users of waterboarding..."
I'd be curious to know of examples where the US prosecuted the waterboarders specifically for waterboarding.
I'm not being sarcastic, I'd seriously like to know some examples where this precedent was set.
I *personally* don't believe waterboarding rises (sinks?) to the level of torture, no more so than sleep denial or loud music. But we're a nation whose legal system is based in precedent - if there is a precedent of the US gov't recognizing waterboarding as tort
Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:5, Informative)
As for it being torture or not, there are a couple of convenient [youtube.com] tests [vanityfair.com](The first is Erich "Mancow" Mueller, talk radio host, attempting to refute critics of waterboarding, the second is Christopher Hitchens writing about his experience with trying it).
There are certainly even nastier ways of hurting people(which, in part, is why waterboarding is so popular, none of that pesky physical evidence) but it is apparently way less fun than it sounds, especially if it can be repeated over and over, in combination with sleep deprivation, isolation, and the like...
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To imply that the US won't/doesn't try its soldiers is simply absurd.
There are ample cases in US history - from current all the way back the Revolutionary War - of the US gov't trying US soldiers for all sorts of crimes.
Now, you might contend that the US is RELUCTANT to try its soldiers, and have a point.
Even there, I'd argue that where the blame is clear, no, the US military has actually been fairly swift to try some soldiers.
Where the evidence is sketchy or brought forward by people whose personal agenda
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Most people wouldn't last more than 5 seconds [citation needed] of water boarding, the technique is to trigger the primal fear of drowning without actually killing you. It's very effective at getting a response from an individual.
A "response" yes. People will say anything to make truly effective torture stop. The truth has little to do with it. As such, warterboarding is well established as a way of coercing false confessions and if necessary, ginning up false "intelligence" to support your desired course of action. As a means of reaching "truth", torture is shit.
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And he still fed us complete bullshit after that. It's not an interrogation technique. It's just another way to spread fear. The KGB knew that very well and that's why they used it since they just needed to match the number of crimes to bodies and didn't care whose body it was. The North Koreans knew it very well and they gave us the waterboard technique as part of the tortures they used to break prisoners before show trials.
We're supposed to be better than that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sometimes the end does justify the means, or (if you're into feeling guilty) at least excuse it. If the alternatives are to use only acceptable means and be defeated by an ene
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However, we claim as Americans to be better than that. We claim to believe in that every human being possesses certain inalienable rights by virtue of his humanity. We cannot espouse such an ideal while also claiming that in war the end justifies the means. The two are contradictory.
Fools claim that they are "above such immoral and inhumane practices" while they stand aside impotently and allow thousands of innocents to die.
I am above killing people. If I see a suicide bomber entering a high school, should I take the moral high ground and stay out of it? Or should I pull a glock from my hip holster and put a bullet in the back of his head? That's murder, isn't it?
I am a a fan of Morihei Ueshiba. Still, you need to understand that the world is neither black and white nor conven
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Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:5, Insightful)
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Waterboarding isn't torture? (Score:2)
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yea no, water boarding sucks and I disagree with using it. I'd even say that we should pass a law. But it's in no way torture and calling it such diminishes what true true torture is.
Torture is the infliction of severe physical or mental pain on someone in order to force them to talk. You can't just change the definition to something like "only things which leave permanent physical damage" as some people here try to do.
Waterboarding is a combination of physical and mental torture, there is both a physical and mental sensation of imminent death unless you talk.
I say we waterboard Bush and Cheney (Score:2)
Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:4, Insightful)
It isn't torture when the good guys do it to the bad guys. Then it's simply "aggressive intelligence gathering". Come on, have you learned nothing from Jack Bauer?
Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, waterboarding is the only form of "torture" that Marines do to each other on weekends for fun. Not even remotely kidding. I was in the Marines, and I have friends who waterboard each other for fun.
There are people who eat broken glass, inject their cocks with cocaine and headbutt iron posts for fun, that doesn't mean it is a legitimate treatment for political prisoners.
Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny, waterboarding is the only form of "torture" that Marines do to each other on weekends for fun. Not even remotely kidding. I was in the Marines, and I have friends who waterboard each other for fun.
I don't know which is more pathetic; your friends' idea of fun, or your complete lack of understanding of what torture really is all about. As others have observed, anything your friends do to you utterly lacks the requisite psychological dynamic that truly qualifies something as torture.
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It might surprise you to find out that there is a whole subgroup of people who enjoy torture, perhaps we just need to give the detainees 'safe-words'. Also, one doesn't have to be into BDSM to be a Marine, but I'm told that it helps.
Replace waterboarding with sodomy. (Score:3, Funny)
You know, while that may be true, it does not really support your implied statement.
I don't care if your friends do it to each other for fun. If you don't have a problem with it being done to unwilling participants then there is something wrong with you.
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Ever see the movie Salo? That's exactly what your quote reminded me of. The Marines are just like the libertine fascists, enjoying bum fuckery and shit-eating.//
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I know you're being facetious to underline your point
Well, it's nice to see that someone noticed that.
but the best intel we've ever gotten has been from when we treated prisoners and 'persons of interest' professionally and did nothing more than talk with them. [Citation needed] but it's not that hard to find. Look up how we got information from German officers during the Second World War.
There is a documentary about The Ritchie Boys ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ritchie_Boys [wikipedia.org] ). They were Jewish Germans who were in the intelligence branch of the US army, who served as translators and interrogators. One of their "shticks" was to dress one up as an American officer, and the other as a Russian Officer. The American one would start the interrogation with the German officer. Then when the German officer refused to answer questions, the "Russian"
Re:I hope it's moderated (Score:4, Insightful)
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I would be more interested in seeing him squirm when asked more controversial questions, like questions about how it felt to lie in a coffin with a ribbon tied around his penis during the Skull and Bones initiation ritual (not joking, this is exactly what happens and has been confirmed by multiple sources)
What is so controversial about that? And, since the book is about his presidency, how is it even remotely relevant?
Hazing used to be common practice. Then people started reporting it, bring to light the fact that it was at least idiotic, often dangerous. So we stopped hazing people, mostly. When I went through Airborne school, I got my "blood wings" even though there's a regulation specifically prohibiting it. My first jump with my unit was the "cherry jump" so my pockets were full of cherries and cherry pi
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Exactly. Because the right never does anything loony, like comparing Obama to Hitler.
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Everybody who is disliked by anybody gets compared to Hitler. Get over it.
No need (Score:2, Flamebait)
As I assume it was one of the grown-ups.
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Or we will be treated to pages of:
"So, how DID you blow up the World trade Center?" and "You lied, People Died!" and "What's it like to be like HITLER you babykiller!?!?!?"
Nothing like W. to bring out the loony left.
Yup, apparently he was president for 8 years, attended hundreds of press conferences, had more people carrying signs of him as hitler, burning him in effigy, lunatics setting up camp outside his ranch, etc., but what will *really* make him squirm is asking him something they read on some idiot website.
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Hell, just look at the number of comments on this very article asking stupid questions about "the real reason" we went to war with Iraq, despite the fact that the reasons for going to war with Iraq are very, very well documented.
The point is that the reasons given at the time (i.e. Saddam Hussein had WMD's capable of attacking the US/UK) turned out to be false, and that the US/UK governments knew this in advance.
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Only in a complete state of denial could you argue that Bush didn't deserve those slogans. He was a shitty President and did more to harm our country than any terrorist ever could. There's loony folks on both sides, but if someone is ripping on Bush then I wouldn't automatically dump them in that category. Maybe if we'd heeded some of those criticisms our country wouldn't be endlessly mired in war, financially ruined, and globally scorned by people around the world who are not infected with Tea Pary logi
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I beg to differ. There were a lot of people on the loony right (and the unloony right) who attacked Bush.
And regarding the current President, I find the scariest things about him are not what the loony right charges, but the things that are unquestionably true but ignored, like his 20 years with a racist "church", his unprecedented efforts to suppress his own paper trail, the associations and politics of many of the "czars" and other advisors he surrounds himself with. The list goes on.
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I'm sorry, but I can't think of ANYONE, including some truly good and decent people, who don't have some whacked-out-crazy associates. That's hardly something to criticize someone for.
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At some point there's a threshold when you start to wonder why the person chooses and/or attracts so many of them.
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Sorry, but even most moderates don't like Bush, quite a few conservatives too.
It's not just the loony left. There's plenty of good complaints about him, and it'll be interesting to see which ones show up, and how he responds.
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Can't see this over the Internet, but I assume you've got a teabag tied on your ear and a "LISTEN TO ME" sign in your hand.
Well, I definitely don't; I'm a Buckley conservative. But it's pretty funny to listen to liberals trying to claim the Tea Party is nuts.
The Tea Party was formed out of anger with Bush on a broad but specific issue: excessive government spending, which was then compounded by Obama's actions. And it is far more bipartisan than establishment liberals care to acknowledge.
Bush derangement syndrome [zombietime.com] started when Bush was a candidate; the NAACP ran an ad in 2000 claiming that electing him would be like dragging Jam
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Everyone I've ever talked to who thinks the Tea Partiers are nuts know absolutely nothing about them and are just parroting the MSM and each other.
Are there nuts among the Tea Partiers? There are nuts in every political movement, but I'd like to see a comparison of the fringe content of any Tea Party Rally with any similar liberal protest or gathering. In comparison, they are probably very tame.
BDS is real and amazing exercise in mouth-foaming bigotry and childish petulance coming from people who otherwis
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Sorry but you are way off. Just look at the candidates of the Tea Party. It is not just a minority in the Tea Party that is nuts. They let people like Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell represent the party. You don't let yourself represent by a whacko if you are not totally out there too. You cannot argue that the majority is well informed and reasonable if they allow Sarah Palin to be their spokesperson.
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They let people like Sarah Palin and Christine O'Donnell represent the party.
I'm not taking sides in this debate, but I am curious as to exactly how a loosely organized group like the Tea Party would go about not letting individuals "represent" them. It's not like either person that you named was elected to speak on behalf of the party. Right?
Oh wait, I am talking to A/C, which is a lot like talking to myself. Anyone have a helpful reply?
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Don't various tea party rallies around the country actively try to recruit Sarah Palin to give speeches?
Likewise, the primary wins of O'Donnell and Joe Miller, due to people who admit to supporting the tea party, clearly shows that these are in fact the desired representatives of many in the tea party (for those states).
Is this a 'real' tea party organization? http://teapartypatriots.org
If so, they seem to think that the recent election was a "win" for them. If so, the new freshman republicans do represent
Re:Cue Bush Derangement Syndrome (Score:5, Interesting)
Your problem is that you throw the word "liberal" around way too much as if it was some kind of insult. To begin with, there's nothing in GP's post that even indicates him as a liberal. He could just as well be a libertarian, for example.
not everyone who disagrees with you is either nuts or evil.
An advice you should consider applying to yourself.
Re:Cue Bush Derangement Syndrome (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if Pelosi were a "dingbat", that has nothing to do with how crazy are Palin and O'Donnell. No one can make Palin sound like a Rhodes scholar.
Meanwhile, "dingbat" Pelosi has successfully managed the House Speaker office for 4 years. You say she's a "dingbat" because you disagree with her. But you just demonstrated that your logic and evaluation skills don't qualify you to accuse someone else of being a dingbat.
You're just like the rest of the Teabaggers: you exploit an audience's fairness in letting you speak to say anything, no matter how nonsensical, to attack your enemies. Right down to accusing in one sentence your enemies of precisely what you just did yourself in the sentence before it. Nuts and evil.
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No, I say she's a dingbat because she says things that are stupid. There's a difference. If you like, I can make citations, but I doubt it will matter.
There are plenty of people with whom I disagree that aren't dingbats. Please don't project on me.
Your circular argument goes in circles.
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- Complete whackos like Sarah Palin, and the other woman, what was her name ? Said it was important to spend government money to fight agaisnt masturbation or something like that... Oh, also Glenn Beck. In short, people that are spokepersons of the tea party.
- Lawrence Lessig, admittedly a liberal, that said the tea party was a great political initiative. Despite disagreement on almost every point, he agreed on the two most central points
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"What amazes me on a daily basis is the sheer level of mindless, childish, unchecked rage expressed at the man."
Exactly! Just because he's responsible for over 100,000 deaths in an illegal war, we shouldn't forget what a nice moron he is.
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As strongly as people feel about President Obama, and there is as much _strong_ feelings against him as there ever were for President Bush, I've never heard anyone wish physical harm on him. I've never heard of people in the media fantasizing on the airwaves about his assassination or any of the many other reprehensible things that were directed towards Bush, and seemingly accep
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I said, and I paraphrase, "WTF, dood. It's everywhere. Open remaining eye, and take spoon out of cup."
Re:Cue Bush Derangement Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's odd how people feel strongly when someone starts a war which hundreds of thousands of people. What's up with that?
I mean, I don't especially appreciate any of your last presidents, Obama included, but G.W.B. was more than simply a bad president.
Re:Cue Bush Derangement Syndrome (Score:5, Insightful)
Then you're not paying attention. Threats on the president's life have skyrocketed since Obama took office. Right wing politicians fantasize about "second amendment remedies." There was a national day of prayer for his death.
You're wilfully remaining ignorant if you truly believe that there was more venom directed agains Bush than against Obama.
I know that Americans tend not to care what the rest of the world thinks about your country, but most of us think your tea partiers are nuts. Here's this wishy-washy, do-little centrist president, and you lot are going on and on about his socialist communist tyranny? And you invite open racists from European nationalist organisations to speak, but then claim the Tea Party isn't racist. Your infrastructure is crumbling because no one has the political will to use tax dollars to fix it, but you're Taxed Enough Already? We all think you're nuts.
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And liberals never associate with open racists?
I'd make a list, but it would take hours and surely go beyond the limits of a /. comment length.
Your infrastructure is crumbling because no one has the political will to use tax dollars to fix it, but you're Taxed Enough Already? We all think you're nuts.
Maybe because they are using those tax dollars to do pointless things that waste the money and fail to do any good. If the U.S. government and the States can't keep things going with close to half the GDP of t
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Like the TSA, DHS, Border Patrol, and the astronomical amount of defense spending? I look forward to the link to your comment pointing out these failures when Bush was the head cheese.
Blind faith in gover
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You're either blind and deaf, or lying. While calling you a liar is much more satisfying, I don't know you from Adam, so I'll just assume you just don't know any better and note that the number of death threats Obama received has been 400% more than Bush; there have been active calls for imprecatory prayer against him,
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But it's pretty funny to listen to liberals trying to claim the Tea Party is nuts.
For those of us outside the US, it's absolutely fucking hilarious to listen to right wingers trying to claim the Tea Party isn't nuts.
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You have violated the rules of Slashthink. The pre-programmed mods will respond in an automatic fashion.
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Sadly, even though the cause of the war is known to be falsified, there is no direct proof Bush indeed ordered that -- even though the contrary would be ridiculous.
If you want a clear-cut case, it's FISA warrantless wiretapping -- which is a federal felony to which he admitted. And paid no consequences, even though he should be sitting in prison -- preferably in the same cell as Obama who ordered the wiretapping to continue.
100% incorrect. (Score:2)
You think that this will be a sham?
Son, you don't know what a sham is.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Gannon [wikipedia.org]
The questions and answers are already written.
The people tasked with "asking" those "questions" already have their Facebook accounts created.
Leave NOTHING to chance.
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Only certain questions will be selected and they will probally be ones he already has an answer prepared for.
No. Fucking. Shit.