One Can Dream

September 11, 2003 3:10 PM

Bush Resignation Hailed by World Leaders
[Washington] The surprise resignation of the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush, on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, was hailed by chiefs of state throughout the world.
posted by mapalm (58 comments total)

still my beating heart, for just a second there i thought...
posted by quonsar at 3:10 PM on September 11, 2003

i know right, what a cocktease. sheesh
posted by shadow45 at 3:17 PM on September 11, 2003

Worst FPP ever.
posted by influx at 3:17 PM on September 11, 2003

Made me stop - for about half a second. Too bad Palast's style is so unlike Bush's - in the hands of a competent satirist it might actually have been believeable. Or funny.
posted by cbrody at 3:22 PM on September 11, 2003

Satire isn't supposed to be so heavy-handed and obvious.
posted by xmutex at 3:24 PM on September 11, 2003

for a moment, the world made sense.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 3:31 PM on September 11, 2003

Sheez, thanks, mapalm! Now what am I ever going to do with this incredible hard-on?
posted by scarabic at 3:31 PM on September 11, 2003

Wow, that would have been cool. A shame it was made-up, oh, and it sucked.
posted by shagoth at 3:32 PM on September 11, 2003

Don't play with our emotions like that, mapalm.
posted by keswick at 3:36 PM on September 11, 2003

"because of I'm such a brilliant general in the War on Terror"

even Bush would be unable to torture English grammar quite as much as this wannabe critic's piece.
posted by bokononito at 3:37 PM on September 11, 2003

Partisan, unfunny, bitter: everything MetaFilter shouldn't ever be. The level of Bush-bashing has descended into irrational babbling.
posted by 111 at 3:46 PM on September 11, 2003

bokononito: Oh, I dunno. Get it down to Guantanamo and I bet Bush'd give it the old college try ... :)
posted by kaemaril at 3:46 PM on September 11, 2003

Satire isn't supposed to be so heavy-handed and obvious.

Have you read Swift's "A Modest Proposal"? Eating Irish babies isn't exactly subtle, but it still is one of the archetypes of modern satire.
posted by sic at 3:50 PM on September 11, 2003

The level of Bush-bashing has descended into irrational babbling.

Especially in contrast to eight years of well-reasoned, erudite Clinton-bashing that frequently reached such levels of rhetorical brilliance that Milton would have wept and perhaps even hidden Areopagitica in his cupboard out of shame. [/irrational babbling]

I'm with you, quonsar -- for a brief, shining nanosecond, this plucky girl's dreams felt like they'd all come true! I even thought I saw My Little Mythic Pony go by the window.
posted by scody at 3:53 PM on September 11, 2003

I will count myself lucky if Bush does not find a way to keep his job in perpetuity, subverting the constituion (he is now on his way to that) and declaring himself ruler till War on Terror complete.
posted by Postroad at 3:53 PM on September 11, 2003

Actually, a lot of people miss the satire and think "A Modest Proposal" really about eating babies, which goes to show that the satire actually IS subtle, if indeed a bit heavy-handed. That's what happened in my freshman english class - everyone was looking at me funny because I was cracking up while the rest of the dumbasses were going "oh, how awful."

Yes, today's generation of youth leaves something to be desired... That was a "gifted" class.
posted by Veritron at 3:56 PM on September 11, 2003

Milton would have wept and perhaps even hidden Areopagitica in his cupboard out of shame.

LOL. Indeed.

At least it made an attempt at satire. I'd *hardly* put this up there with the bitterest partisan babbling in history, 111. If all satire directed at the sitting administration is going to be written off as bitter Bush bashing, let's just disable comments and stick to fun Flash posts.
posted by scarabic at 3:58 PM on September 11, 2003

Wow, I found a badly-written article about Bush! I'm gonna post it on the front page with all the others! Bush is baaaaaad!

Stop shitting on MeFi.
posted by tirade at 4:01 PM on September 11, 2003

Veritron: what a bunch of retards, but understandable since many Americans took it seriously when Bush made outrageous claims about WMD in Iraq and secret Nigerian plutonium deals. It's astonishing that they just weren't able to grasp the subtlety of his presidential satire. That's why month's later he or Condi Rice has to come out and explain that he really didn't mean that he meant something else and that it doesn't really mater because we've moved on anyway.

Satire is like that.
posted by sic at 4:01 PM on September 11, 2003

If all satire directed at the sitting administration is going to be written off as bitter Bush bashing, let's just disable comments and stick to fun Flash posts.

Or Bush bashing Flash posts.
posted by homunculus at 4:02 PM on September 11, 2003

...astonishing that they just weren't able to grasp the subtlety of his presidential satire.

*slaps forehead*
DOH!
posted by quonsar at 4:07 PM on September 11, 2003

"Have you heard radio lately? It's filthy jokes and people making fun of the President of the United States."
-- Greg Kinnear in "Auto-Focus"
posted by inksyndicate at 4:38 PM on September 11, 2003

LeftyPorn, get your red hot LeftyPorn!
posted by Jos Bleau at 4:45 PM on September 11, 2003

I'm a full-on bordering-on-Marxist lefty, and have glorious visions of a JFK-style end for Bush.

However - that piece of 'satire' is utter crap.
posted by influx at 4:49 PM on September 11, 2003

boycott
posted by kablam at 4:53 PM on September 11, 2003

have glorious visions of a JFK-style end

Don't be surprised if one of Ashcroft's goons is sneaking and peeking around your house after that post. It's Patriot-ic.

Terrible president, inane satire, lame link, dark ages, but it was nearly worth it for the quarter-second frisson of imagining that the headline was real.
posted by digaman at 4:57 PM on September 11, 2003

"Have you read Swift's A Modest Proposal?"

How dare you compare Greg Palast to Johnathan Swift! A Modest Proposal is superbly written satire, and you can read at least two or three paragraphs into it before realizing he's pulling your leg. Well, actually it's so well writ that at the time it came out many people took him quite seriously and were appaulled. Hence, the amusement. It's like a practical joke.

Palast's effort is something that doesn't last through a first reading, or even the first paragraph. It barely gets past "my fellow Americans" before you realize it's a gag. Where's the fun in that? Actually this is more parody than satire. It's an attempt at mimicing the style of a presidential speech. However, it's like drawing a stick figure and claiming to be Norman Rockwell. There've been SNL skits with better satire than this!

I may vote for Shrub next year now simply to spite Palast. Hell, it's not like any of the democratic candidates racing about right now can do any better than the spoiled rich mama's boy with drug issues that's doing the job now. Besides we know his daddy's just gonna buy his re-election anyway.
posted by ZachsMind at 4:59 PM on September 11, 2003

but it was nearly worth it for the quarter-second frisson

perZACKly.
posted by quonsar at 5:00 PM on September 11, 2003

Palast is definitely no Swift. That piece was heavy-handed from the get-go, the sort of thing I used to write in high school. I dislike Bush as much as the next guy, but better quality writing could have made the article worthwhile.
posted by clevershark at 5:05 PM on September 11, 2003

I may vote for Shrub next year now simply to spite Palast.

THAT's an intelligent reason to get oneself out to the polls.

/sarcasm
posted by clevershark at 5:06 PM on September 11, 2003

Polls, schmolls. Since when did Bush need a majority vote to occupy the White House?
posted by digaman at 5:14 PM on September 11, 2003

Boy, nice to see someone else is getting pain over a satire FPP. At least, my last one had a meme hook to it...

It is starting to sound a bit Farkish around here with all the in-depth thread slamming though...
posted by Samizdata at 5:16 PM on September 11, 2003

for a moment, the world made sense.

That's exactly how I felt....
posted by starscream at 5:21 PM on September 11, 2003

I've just finished 12 hours of straight coding, i haven't surfed, watched tv or read a newspaper since sometime yesterday afternoon.

The first thing i do is go to Mefi and see this headline. Just for a moment, partially due to my brain being the size of a pea at the moment, I believed! and it was sooo good.
posted by carfilhiot at 5:36 PM on September 11, 2003

C'mon, now. The vote was pretty clearly five to four in Bush's favor.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 5:40 PM on September 11, 2003

carfilhiot: Hold that thought for a while. It might get you through the day without needing any caffeine :)
posted by kaemaril at 5:42 PM on September 11, 2003

This isn't terribly well-written satire, but I'm not going to hold my breath waiting for the likes of the unnamed troll upthread to point out a piece of good satire that lampoons Bush.
posted by Space Coyote at 5:47 PM on September 11, 2003

This just in ... In a related development, Bill Clinton has just apologied to all the 9/11 victims' families for passing-up several opportunities to have Osama bin-Laden apprehended and extradited to the United States.

There. Everyone feel better? Even I can write crappy satire.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 5:54 PM on September 11, 2003

I may vote for Shrub next year now simply to spite Palast.

Aw, c'mon, at least read his investigative journalism first. He's not a very funny satirist, but he sure has dug up up some nasty offal from the closets of both political parties. Particularly Bush, though. He's my grumbling, unfunny muckraker hero.
posted by inksyndicate at 6:03 PM on September 11, 2003

I just read his "The best democracy money can buy" and I thought it made sense. Now this... it was supposed to be funny was it?
posted by hoskala at 6:50 PM on September 11, 2003

influx: " I'm a full-on bordering-on-Marxist lefty, and have glorious visions of a JFK-style end for Bush."

Don't even think it.

If Bush is taken out of office we get Cheney. While I no longer believe Bush to be an idiot (he's really quite smart, in a creepy Ted Bundy sociopathic kind of way) I think that his drive to be popular and appeal to the masses will moderate his actions as far as domestic policy goes.

Cheney, on the other hand, is the fucking anti-Christ and would cheerfully incinerate all of us in a thermonuclear ball of fire if he thought it would increase the value of his stock options.
posted by cedar at 6:58 PM on September 11, 2003

cedar - That's brilliant! GW Bush = Ted Bundy ( !! )

Best thing on this thread, I'd say.
posted by troutfishing at 7:30 PM on September 11, 2003

Yeah...I'm with cedar...cheney is george redux's bullet proof vest. Nobody wants the Lizard in charge. He's just spooky.
posted by dejah420 at 7:55 PM on September 11, 2003

>have glorious visions of a JFK-style end

>>Don't be surprised if one of Ashcroft's goons is sneaking and peeking around your house after that post.

What I want to know is - is this true? Is America so far gone that you honestly need to worry about that sort of thing?

I'm serious. Has it gotten that bad over there?


(Also, I think you're wrong about Cheney. Why do you think he hides in the backroom - a good gander at the evil glowing out of that fucker's eyes up on the podium trying and failing to make the warm fuzzies that Shrub somehow manages to transmit would send mom-and-pop America to the polls toute de suite, terrified but not quite sure why.)
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:09 PM on September 11, 2003

...for a moment, the world made sense.
That's exactly how I felt...

And that's also how I felt...and thus why I posted it.

That piece was heavy-handed from the get-go.

That's also why I posted it. Dammit, this country NEEDS some heavy-handedness. Enough pussy-footing around the obvious...I stand by this post, but am also the first to admit that the writing was a tad sloppy in places. The point was - it did not hold back, which is more that I can say for most of those who purport to either make the news, or cover it.
posted by mapalm at 8:30 PM on September 11, 2003

111: Partisan, unfunny, bitter: everything MetaFilter shouldn't ever be.

If only I could bottle and sell irony.
posted by RylandDotNet at 8:54 PM on September 11, 2003

(yawn) Wow, another boring liberal fantasy post. If democrats really want to get their act together and kick Bush out of office, then maybe they should get their heads out of the clouds. This whole "my party isn't in office so I'm gonna cry and moan about it without really doing anything" is getting really boring. And don't even try to compare this piece to real satire; this is just another hamfisted, ill-thought attack on the President that achieves nothing except to drive Republicans and Democrats further apart. Children, enough!
posted by mr. man at 10:04 PM on September 11, 2003

And the bottom line of course, as always, is that discussion of politics on MetaFilter blows goats and I would sooner ban it entirely than stomach another Bush baaaaad! thread.
posted by mathowie at 4:43 PM PST on September 6




posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 10:33 PM on September 11, 2003

i hate bush as much as the rest of you, but assassination is only going to make him a martyr, you realise.
posted by pxe2000 at 5:19 AM on September 12, 2003

Hoskala "The Best Democracy..." is a great book. Lots of deatails, painstakingly investigated and exposed.

I think Greg should stick to the facts, and what he's good at, and pass on the Michael Moore material.
posted by Blue Stone at 6:22 AM on September 12, 2003

Veritron: I hope you meant freshman as in 9th grade, not freshman in college.

If so, then you went to college with some stupid, stupid people.
posted by Ynoxas at 7:13 AM on September 12, 2003

If NOT, then ...
posted by Ynoxas at 7:15 AM on September 12, 2003

The level of Bush-bashing has descended into irrational babbling.

If so, it works only in relief to the equally base Bush boosting after 9/11. Talk about disgusting.
posted by holycola at 5:01 PM on September 12, 2003

mathowie: You got a macro or something for that?

Isn't there some sort of cf voodoo you could do that would add it, say about 30 down, into every thread mentioning Bush, Iraq or 'terrorist' ?
posted by cedar at 5:48 PM on September 12, 2003

maybe steve does, cedar (he fake-posted it) : >
posted by amberglow at 5:54 PM on September 12, 2003

Oh. I'm an idiot. I just figured the blank spot was Steve@ left speechless.
posted by cedar at 6:01 PM on September 12, 2003

nah...it's funny how there's always one person to fall for it tho

(and i wouldn't call this link political so much as humorous, on a par with bush flash stuff)
posted by amberglow at 6:15 PM on September 12, 2003

Okey-dokey then... I'm off to annoy Matt with incessant email petitioning begging for the rapid deletion of my foolishness.

This cannot stand! It cannot! We must draw the line in the sand across the desert near the oasis by that obscure border right this damn second! The terrorists have won! I am SO outta here! See ya in New Zealand (is Kiwi a fruit or a more generic kinda thing?) !
posted by cedar at 6:24 PM on September 12, 2003