After Afghanistan and the War on Terror: US State Department works hard for US State Department

Fox News says the US State Department is blocking private rescue flights from leaving Afghanistan. Well, the government would, no? After all, it makes them look looks as though they’re in control and reinforces the need for bureaucrats. Why would the wonks let private companies do what they cannot?

As for the bigger picture, the War on Terror has been far from successful. If terror is the ability to foment mayhem, then the war achieved it better than the enemy ever could. What 9/11 did was to give the US a job – a mission. In 2002, then US vice president Dick Cheney said the War on Terror was a “single, immediate, global threat that any roomful of experts could agree upon.” His boss, George Bush, would “rid the world of evil”. So off went the US on its mission to Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan. Bush said it “begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. [The War on Terror] will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated.”

And then America tired of occupation and proxy wars and went home.

Anorak

Posted: 7th, September 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment

20 years of nailing it Afghanistan – watch four culpable US presidents bullshit the world

The US-led invasion of Afghanistan has been led by the US-led retreat from the country ruled by the Taliban, just as it was when the US went in. It’s been 20 years of waste, thousands of lost lives, many more damaged ones, hope destroyed and the dawning realisation that America is good at one thing: picking a president on the strength of their abilities in marketing. George Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden – you’d not want any of them in your corner in a fight. Now – get your war on!

Anorak

Posted: 24th, August 2021 | In: Key Posts, News, Politicians | Comment

Tony Blair Was Framed: George Bush’s Art Become Bootleg Merchandise

GEORGE W. Bush’s paintings have been adapted to feature on pillows, bags, throws and clocks. Bush’s collection – “The Art of Leadership: A President’s Personal Diplomacy” –  features the faces of his dad, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin and Hamid Karzai.

Anorak

Posted: 26th, April 2014 | In: Politicians, The Consumer | Comment

George W. Bush’s name is not mud anymore

HOW popular in George W Bush?

Harry Enten says he isn’t:

Back in 2010, Gallup asked Americans what their retrospective approval rating was for Presidents John F Kennedy through George W Bush. In every instance except for one, the retrospective approval was higher than the final approval was when they left office. Most Republicans, for instance, love to make fun of Jimmy Carter. Carter was the only president of the 20th century to lose re-election after replacing a president of a different party. He left office with a 34% job approval rating. His retrospective job approval rating in the 2010 Gallup poll jumped by 18pt.

Second, Bush’s retrospective approval is the second worst among presidents in the last 50 years ago. To save you doing the math, Carter’s 52% approval rating is higher than Bush’s 47%. Only the Watergate-tainted Richard Nixon recorded a lower retrospective approval than Bush.

Michael Baron has a different view:

“Perhaps Bush’s name is not mud anymore. A Washington Post/ABC poll asked respondents to rate Bush’s performance for the first time since December 2008, when only 33 percent rated it positively and 66 percent rated it negatively. What the pollster found is that today 47 percent approve and 50 percent disapprove of Bush’s performance. That approval number is precisely the same as President Obama’s in the most recent Post/ABC poll.”

The less he does the more they like him.

Anorak

Posted: 25th, April 2013 | In: Politicians | Comment

Racists hated ”incompetent’ George Bush for being black

IS that racist? US Democrat James Clyburn’s hears accusations that UN Ambassador Susan Rice is incompetent. The National Journal reports:

When asked about Rice on CNN’s Starting Point on Tuesday, Clyburn said that words like “lazy” and “incompetent,” which have been used to describe black members of the administration, including Rice and President Obama himself, are reminiscent of language used to undermine minorities in decades past

“You know, these are code words,” Clyburn said. “We heard them during the campaign. During this recent campaign, we heard Senator Sununu calling our president lazy, incompetent—these kinds of terms that those of us, especially those of us who were grown and raised in the South, we would hear these little words and phrases all of our lives, and we’d get insulted by them.”

Anorak

Posted: 22nd, November 2012 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

Obama Is As Big A Golfing Idiot As George Bush: Now Watch This Putt

WHEN the Virginia Earthquake struck, Barack Obama was playing golf. (His Deputy, Joe Biden, was in Japan…talking about that country’s recent earthquake.)

Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown was in the press pool watching Obama at play:

The pool was ushered onto the fairway of first hole, where the presidential party had already reached the putting green. The pool was kept several hundred feet away, well outside shouting distance.

The pool was, however, able to see the president putting moves, albeit from a distance.

From our vantage point, this is the play by play: He stepped up to his ball, which was several feet from the hole, and made two practice strokes. He missed the hole on his first putt, but got it close. He then tried to tap it in, but missed again. He appeared to pick up the ball to let the others in his party play through as he watched.

Anorak

Posted: 24th, August 2011 | In: Politicians | Comment

Is Barack Obama’s Situation Room George Bush’s Plastic Turkey

ON Saturday 6 December 2003, Mark Lawson told Guardian readers that George Bush was “stuffed by a plastic turkey”.

In a revelation certain to be taught at schools of democracy and journalism for years to come, it has been revealed that the apparently appetising turkey that President Bush carried towards beaming troops last week in Baghdad had been genetically modified to a degree that would lead even the most profit-hungry farmers to protest. The bird was the kind of model used by butchers and Hollywood set-dressers.

Following this disclosure, the president is, unlike his political prop, stuffed…

…the affair of the plastic turkey can only be attributed to insecurity.

…Whatever the details, the message is clear. Though he still lacks anything as pesky as a plausible Democrat opponent, Dubya is starting to fear that his administration may become the second one-term turkey served up by the Bush dynasty.

Anorak

Posted: 11th, May 2011 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment

How Good Barack Obama Is Nothing Like Bad George Bush

FIRST the good news: Barack Obama is not the first American leader heading to the Middle East to overthrow a local nutter. The last one was called George Bush – and Obama is most definitely not him. No way. This ain’t no Iraq. This is Libya.

Says Barack Obama:

“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.”

Don Surber corrects him:

Actually, he does. It’s called the War Powers Act. It has been around since 1973.

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2011 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment (1)

Why Arabs Should Thank George Bush For Revolution In Egypt, Tunisia And Libya

DID Abu Ghraib and US torture and abuses in Iraq and beyond open the eyes of the Arab world to the value of Human Rights? Shadi Mokhtari says they did.

The Arabs could see the US as the bad guy- and that made Human Rights and the demand for them easier to swallow. Human Rights were now a universal issue. Egypt under Mubarak became just like America. And Egypt could be changed.

Only, what comes next? The Middle East has a history in one hideous regime after another. The US had a vote.

Anorak

Posted: 28th, February 2011 | In: Politicians | Comment

President Bush’s Plea Bargain Leads To Blair And Ahmadinejad’s Arrest

FORMER President Bush has cancelled a trip to Switzerland. Why? Is it to cut down his carbon footprint? No. It’s to avoid arrest.

Katherine Gallagher, a lawyer with the New York-based Centre for Constitutional Rights, tells the Guaridan:

“The reach of the convention against torture is wide. This case is prepared and will be waiting for him wherever he travels next. Torturers, even if they are former presidents of the United States, must be held to account and prosecuted.”

Great. One rule of law for all mankind, regardless of status. But why only go for bush? why not nick Ahamdinejad, Blair, Mubarak, Barack Obama… There is no room to be partisan. Nick them all. Let the world see the wrongdoers in jail and know their behaviour has consequences.

Anorak

Posted: 8th, February 2011 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

George Bush Read 95 Books In A Year (With Pictures)

DID you know that George Dubya Bush read 95 books in a year, totalling 37,343 pages? That’s the kind of fact George Bush would know about books isn’t it: how many pages he’d read.

The editor of our sister site Stylebrity once worked for a big-time music promoter. He’d buy all the York Notes passbooks and try and drop a nugget of information into the conversation. He would do this without any humour or self-deprecation. For him the value of a book was measured in weight and audience reaction.

Anorak

Posted: 15th, November 2010 | In: Politicians | Comments (5)

George Bush Greets The Troops As Obama Lets Us Forget

ANYONE missing George W. Bush yet? One things Obama might have gotten wrong is to fail to remind everyone enough what went before.

Andrew Sullivan says:

Now, the Tories have only just gotten into office, while Obama has had a year and a half to be accountable. But they are doing what Obama should, in my view, have done from the start: relentlessly remind people of what the GOP did to this country.

Another thing Obama might have gotten wrong is forgetting who his allies are and looking like he’s in it for the money and fame as his wife swans about Marbella while the recession continues to bite.

Anorak

Posted: 12th, August 2010 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

Argentinian Artist Escapes Canada With George Bush’s Flying Banana

IN Canada, Argentinian artisits Caesar Saëz has been paid $80 000 by the Canada Arts Council to create a flying banana to abuse George Bush with.

* “An Argentinian artist name Caesar Saëz who lived in Quebec applied to the Canada Arts Council and to the Quebec counterpart (le Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec) to create a 300-metre long flying banana made of bamboo and a type of synthetic paper (resembling Tyvex?) in order to denounce George Bush. The banana was to fly over the state of Texas.”

Can you pilot a banana? We might never know. Caesar Saëz has gone with the money…

Anorak

Posted: 20th, March 2010 | In: Strange But True | Comment

Barack Obama Turns Into A Weak George Bush: Video Proof

WHEN we said that you’d miss George Bush when he was gone. we meant it. Barack Obama  is so smooth he says:

“The Middle East is obviously an issue that has plagued the region for centuries.”

George Bush – it’s like he never went.

Spotter: Tim Blair

Anorak

Posted: 1st, February 2010 | In: Politicians | Comment

Claire McCaskill Misses George Bush Because He’s Not Black

THE US Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), tells CNN watchers that Obama is a top man and any failings in border security are not his fault:

“Unlike a myopic focus on Iraq, this administration is going worldwide in this war and is focused on it. And I think it is unfair and, frankly, political to take pot shots at the president as we respond to this failure in our systems that we’ve got to get fixed.”

Anorak

Posted: 5th, January 2010 | In: Reviews | Comment

Gordon Brown Fixes Adam Boulton With A Paddington Bear Stare

HUGO Rifkind is writing on the Madness of Gordon Brown, a politican who has being paying heed to the master: Paddington Bear.

We are bullying Gordon Brown to mental collapse – We may regret our attitude to the Prime Minister once he’s gone.

Well, yes. as Anorak said when George Bush made his goodbyes and pushed the pull door to contentment, ‘You’ll miss him when he’s gone.’

And Bush was bullied wasn’t he, portrayed as a dunce, a thicko who kept reading as the Twin Towers collapsed. Channel 4 even fantasized about him being murdered. Says Hugo:

I started thinking it last weekend when Andrew Marr asked the PM, effectively, if he was on antidepressants. Setting aside the curious assumption in the question (that if we did have a depressed PM, it would somehow be better if he wasn’t taking anything), you have to wonder what Marr hoped to gain by asking it.

Well, that wasn’t the question that was asked. But if you can’t find an ounce of comedy in Gordon Brown – the last man to know – then you need to look again.

Anorak

Posted: 2nd, October 2009 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

Left-Handed Underpants Add Seconds To Obama’s Life

HARRY Wallop, the Telegraph’s consumer affairs editor brings news of the left-handed underpants.

Thanks to knicker maker Hom, southpaws have finally achieved equal opportunities where it matters most.

In the press release Hom says the gunties will “save left handed men up to three, often vital, seconds when visiting the loo“.

Over the course of a lifetime this could add up to a full quarter of an hour to your telly watching, preventing you missing that decisive goal or the weather for your region.

Anorak

Posted: 24th, September 2009 | In: Key Posts, The Consumer | Comments (5)

Death Of A President: George Bush Was A Better Hitler Than Obama

WHO is the biggest Little Hitler: George Bush or Barack Obama? Let’s have a heated debate.

And which had the bigger death cult – Bush (murdered by Channel 4) or Barry, haunted by the Barack Obama Death Cult?

Wrote Mark Steyn:

On the other hand, if you’re running for president not as an unexceptional first-term senator with a thin resume but as the new Messiah, the new Kennedy, the new Gandhi, the new Martin Luther King, you can’t blame folks for leaping ahead to the next stage in the mythic narrative. Around the world, a second instant sub-genre has sprung up in which commentators speculate how long it will be before some deranged Christian-fundamentalist neo-Nazi gun-nut deprives America of its fleeting wisp of glory.

Anorak

Posted: 23rd, September 2009 | In: Politicians | Comment

Boris Johnson, Sarah Palin And Barack Obama Star In Pro-Cannabis Campaign

BORIS Johnson, Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, George Bush, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, David Cameron and Hazel ‘It had no effect on me” Blears star in drugs campaign.

TO prove that taking illegal drugs need be no barrier to a successful carrer in politics, charity Release has launched a deck of playing cards to illustrate it Nice People Take Drugs campaign.

The campaign features such exhibits as Boris Johnson, Sarah Palin, George Bush, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, David Cameron and Hazel Blears.

Says Sebastian Saville, chief executive of Release:

“We developed the deck of cards specifically to show the hypocrisy of politicians who talk about their sterling efforts in the fight against drugs when so many of them have taken drugs themselves,” Saville said. “The UK public are now well aware that politicians appear to live by their own special rules in many areas – we felt it was time to add drug use to the list.

“Many people, including these politicians, have used drugs and have come to no harm but this is mainly because they were not caught doing it…”

“Their careers did not suffer, yet they continue to support a regime that results in thousands of often less privileged people being condemned to marginalisation, incarceration and permanent disadvantage due to personal drug use.”

Had any of these people been arrested for possession of illegal drugs would they have risen to the top?

How To Be A Gangster, By Jacqui Smith And New Labour

Enjoy the gallery:

Anorak

Posted: 27th, June 2009 | In: Politicians | Comment (1)

Obama’s Fake Turkey Trip To Iraq

GEORGE bush had a fake fake turkey. And now Obama has a fake turkey as he meets the “advisory assistance brigade” helping with those man-caused disasters… – Macsmind:

…about that “surprise visit”.

It wasn’t. The visit was communicated a full 24 hours in advance and a small contingent of soldiers – not screaming hordes – were rustled into a meeting place at Camp Victory.

Got this email from a sergeant that was there.

We were pre-screened, asked by officials “Who voted for Obama?”, and then those who raised their hands were shuffled to the front of the receiving line. They even handed out digital cameras and asked them to hold them up.

Take a look at the picture at AP and notice all the cameras are the same models. Coincidence? I think not.

Anorak

Posted: 14th, April 2009 | In: Politicians | Comment

Obama Learns To Speak Austrian

BARACK Obama is no George Bush. When Obama asks for more troops, the allies say no. When Obama meets world leaders he contorts. And when speaking to Austrians, he laments the fact that he can’t speak Austrian:

At a news conference afterward, Obama said his debut on the international stage had convinced him that “political interaction in Europe is not that different from the United States Senate,” where he served before entering the White House.

“There’s a lot of — I don’t know what the term is in Austrian — wheeling and dealing, and people are pursuing their interests, and everybody has their own particular issues and their own particular politics,” he said in response to an Austrian reporter’s question.

Anorak

Posted: 6th, April 2009 | In: Politicians | Comments (8)

The Most Bizarre And Worst Celebrity Dolls Ever Made

BARBIE is 50 this year and Anorak brings you the 50 Things You Never Knew About Barbie. But Barbie is not the only celebrity doll. There have been others. And Anorak brings you the strangest, least-deserving, most bizarre and downright odd celebrity dolls ever – enjoy:

Karl Lagerfeld, Angelina Jolie, Ann Coulter, Bill Clinton, Bindi Irwin, Amy Winehouse, Britney Spears, Caylee Anthony, Charles Dickens, Diane Ross, Donald Trump, Drew Carey, Albert Einstein, Elton John,George Bush, Hillary Clinton, Hugh Hefner, Jennifer Lopez (NSFW), Jerry Springer, Jesus, John Travolta, Kelly Osbourne, Laura Bush, Lemme,Lindsay Lohan, Nirvana, The One, OJ, Pamela Anderson, Paris Hilton,Princess Diana, Rosie O’Donnell (Barbie!), Sarah Palin (schoolgirl), Nicolas Sarkozy voodoo, Seth Godin, Snoop Dogg, Suzanne Somers (with thighs!), Sonny, Steve Irwin, Timberlake and Jackson, Tom Cruise, Tori Spelling, Vanilla Ice, Victoria Silvstedt, William Shakepeare action figure, Winston Churchill.

Karl Lagerfeld’s Credit Crunch Survival Tips.

Anorak

Posted: 3rd, April 2009 | In: Celebrities | Comment

Live Iranian TV Show Cancelled As Child Names Stuffed Monkey Ahmadinejad

GEORGE Bush was a monkey, here, here, here, here, here and here. Barack Obama has been a monkey. And Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, atomic leader of all the Irans, well he might be a monkey yet:

When the presenter of Amoo Pourang, a programme watched by millions of Iranian children three times a week on state TV, asked the name of the toy the boy had been given as a reward for behaving himself, the child replied: “Well, my father calls him Ahmadinejad.”

Anorak

Posted: 12th, March 2009 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment (1)

Hillary Clinton’s Launch Date with George Bush

HILLARY Clinton tries to tell a joke (in Russian!) and at once looks Hill-arious (geddit?). Hillary follows up her ad lib session with Russia with a launch date with Obama.

Ooops! Sorry, a lunch date. Here’s the Hilly Billy:

I have never understood multiparty democracy. It is hard enough with two parties to come to any resolution, and I say this very respectfully, because I feel the same way about our own democracy, which has been around a lot longer than European democracy.

Anorak

Posted: 8th, March 2009 | In: Politicians | Comment

South African Kills George Bush

IN South Africa, the local TV station is running a ticker that announces the death of George Bush.

The scrolling banner on ETV News says “George Bush is dead”.

Anorak

Posted: 13th, February 2009 | In: Politicians | Comments (13)