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The Ugliest of Ugly Americans
I’ve been thinking about how ugly Americans have been since President Barak Obama began his term as the first African American United States President. Sure, satirists have always poked fun at politicians — I am thinking of the old “Colbert Report.”
Think back. In those tragic days after 9.11, the attitude toward President George W. Bush was supportive and people on all sides of the political spectrum knew this was a time to come together. It was only when the George W decided it was time to ‘shock and awe’ Iraq that the word was out — seriously? Why? Was it revenge for threats on his father? Did we believe the Brits spy ‘curveball’ who said there were WMD’s? We invaded sovereign nation because we either thought: (1) they have weapons of mass destruction (which they didn’t) or (2) Saddam Hussein was involved in 9.11 (which he wasn’t).
The result towards Bush was needling from some comics/ commentators, anger from others, but mostly Bush was viewed as a ‘kind doofus.’ He was not considered a ‘devil’ or ‘Satanic’; two descriptions that conservative loud mouths pinned on Hillary Clinton. Bush II was a nice guy who just listened to the wrong bad guys (Cheney/ Rumsfeld, etc.) I admit Hollywood took a pretty vicious shot at Dick Cheney in Vice, but by many accounts there was a fair amount of truth to the film.
