AMERICAN COPROPHAGIA

Friday, April 02, 2004

Bush: A Regular Laff-Bag

First we had this:

Beltway Humor: Media React to Bush's Weapons Jokes

Interestingly, Bush's comments were hardly controversial to the Beltway press corps, which seemed to write it off as harmlessly "self-deprecating" humor. Many of the press accounts the next day did not raise questions about Bush's humorous reference to his administration's bogus rationale for a war that has cost thousands of lives-- American and Iraqi. For the media, such humor was expected. "Well, every night we hear people on TV telling jokes about President Bush, but last night it was the president's turn to tell jokes about the president," CBS anchor Julie Chen explained (3/25/04), adding that "at least someone's making jokes about it other than the late-night talk show hosts."

And now we have this:

Grisly Deaths Don't Dent an Upbeat Bush Message Stressing Iraq Successes

WASHINGTON, April 1 — Hours after the gruesome pictures of an Iraqi mob mauling the charred corpses of four American contract workers sped around the world, President Bush swept into a huge ballroom in one of Washington's most affluent neighborhoods.

It was his final big fund-raiser, and hundreds of his supporters were gathered around $2,000-a-seat tables, picking at salads and catching up on Washington gossip.

Mr. Bush seemed all smiles. He did speak about Iraq, but not of the day's events. The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, had denounced them on Mr. Bush's behalf as "horrific, despicable attacks."

Yet Mr. Bush's first reference to the country was a laugh line about his opponent, Senator John Kerry.

I'm sorry--did anyone miss that headline? Well, it was this: