Is Bush A Coward or a Weasel?

By: Winston Smith

Once again, the hilariously misnamed "liberal media" is doing Karl Rove's bidding and is sheepishly reprinting the White House's propaganda missives as news. This time it is the brave comments by Our Sainted Bush on the Lott situation.

As BuzzFlash has illuminated in its usual stellar fashion, the press were all for Bush's comments last Thursday condemning Lott's remarks. Lines such as "President Bush's decision to rebuke GOP Senate leader Trent Lott... came because the President felt an obligation to speak out" (CNN), that Bush "received a standing ovation from the predominantly minority crowd" (Fox News), and "No one has put more effort than George W. Bush into ending the image of the Republican Party as a whites-only haven." (NY Times).

Well la-dee-da. As usual with the press when they report on Bush, the 1100 pound elephant in the room is never addressed. In this case the obvious question to ask is not only why it took our "leader" eight days to respond, but why didn't Bush respond when Lott made the remarks initially? After all, Lott made his odious comments in the White House, with Bush right next to him (strangely though, no video has been shown of Bush's response to Lott at the time of his remarks).

A true leader would have stopped the proceedings right there and then, as would someone who was as outraged as Bush professed to be in his remarks last week. But no. There was silence by Bush as these offensive remarks were made in "his" house. There was silence the day after, and the day after, and the day after. Only when it became clear where the prevailing political winds were blowing did our Rove-bot say his two bits.

This reminds me of a bigot who tells a racial joke at a party. The bigot is really not the one to focus on, he is a known quantity. No, it is the people at the party. Fellow bigots will laugh at the joke, as will the spineless weasels who are afraid to be seen as not going along. Most people will remain silent, perhaps with mouth agape, and talk about the incident afterwards. Marginally better than the weasel, but still a rather cowardly stance to take.

The true person of character would confront the bigot in mid-sentence, and remind him that not only is his "joke" offensive to the subject of the joke, but to the people at the party as well, because the bigot assumes they would find a racial joke funny.

With George Bush, we know we don't have a person of character when it comes to race, because he sat there when Lott made his comments. The only outstanding question, in lieu of a videotape, is whether he is an average coward, or a weasel.