"I felt bad when George Bush was booed"

[Obamarama]

I don't know if this has already made the rounds on DU, but I ran across this great recounting of the inauguration by Dick Cavett in the New York Times. I think he was spot on:

I felt bad when George Bush was booed. But only briefly. My sympathy for that man has a half-life of about four seconds. There was a surprising number of outpourings of sympathy for his having to sit there and, as it was too-often described, “take it on the chin.” Was there ever a chin more deserving of taking it? “You have to feel sorry for him,” someone cooed. “No. You do not!” I shouted at the screen. I know he “tried” and he “did what he thought was right.” But so does the incompetent surgeon.

What does that excuse?

His brief discomfort “sitting there” can’t have been less endurable than the discomfort of the young soldier describing on the news how he watched helplessly as his gut-shot buddy bled to death on the sands the smirking Texan sent him to.

---
And a hearty sayonara to that other fellow. Do freshman philosophy classes nowadays debate updated versions of the age-old questions? Like, how could a merciful God allow AIDS, childhood cancers, tsunamis and Dick Cheney?

---

What this — as Tennessee W.’s Blanche DuBois says, “young, young, young man” can do for the country and the world is yet to be revealed. But for starters isn’t it nice having someone in the Oval Office with smarts? And class? And syntax?

http://cavett.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/23/im-not-weeping-its-an-allergy/?em

[arcadian]

1. Compassionate people can find compassion for even the most loathesome.

It's what separates us from the likes of... well, from the likes of Bush and Cheney. Only for a split second in their cases though.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

2. I'm only sorry that the mutherfucker isn't in jail yet

[madokie]

3. You got that right

[n2doc]

11. word n/t

[TahitiNut]

14. Ubetcha.

:thumbsup:

[NRaleighLiberal]

4. For 8 years, I've felt badly when he has NOT been booed. And I am an empathetic person!

It is just that the contempt, hubris and ignorance he showed to the country deserved no good will whatsoever. He is the prototypical asshole who for some reason never did get the shit kicked out of him growing up, so maintained an ego well in excess of his merits.

The system did not work, unfortunately, to allow someone such as he to rise to the presidency (then again, it did take all sorts of criminal manipulations to get him there).

[otohara]

13. Oh He Was Booed, But The MSM & His

own downplaying of criticism was pushed aside as "part of the job" allowed the MSM to further downplay just how much this man was despised by 1/2 the people in this country, and the majority of people on the rest of the planet.

After a while, you give up on booing if it's ignored time and time again. The only thing left to do was to wait it out and give a big hearty BOO when his sorry ass was escorted out of D.C.

We threw slippers at the TV every time his face popped up and booed right along with those in D.C.

[Peregrine Took]

5. I felt bad that the boo's weren't loud enough. One more biscuit for

breakfast next time, folks!

[dkofos]

6. He probably hasn't stopped drinking since he got back to Crawford.

GOOD.
He can drink himself to death as far as I'm concerned.
The sooner the better.
Maybe he will die before they ship him off to the Hague.

[glitch]

7. "and I wasn't there to join in"

Bush and Cheney will be very lucky if they don't end up in bunkers somewhere.

Keep in mind our economy has only just begun to collapse.

[Warpy]

8. I felt bad for a nanosecond that any president should be booed

and then I realized it was Stupid and got over it quickly.

Even Nixon wasn't booed!

He really is the worst of the worst.

[Merlot]

9. I feel bad for all the people who have lost their retirement

and for the people who's loved ones are dying because of lack of research with stem-cells

and for the people who have been "stop-lossed" into a war when they signed up to serve the rotc and now their family's and jobs/businesses are a mess

and for all the people of Katrina

and...oh, I just don't have enough time.

[sfpcjock]

10. Yea, but you felt bad BEFORE that, right?

Dems don't feel bad for Satan when he killed 1M.

[SmileyRose]

12. I feel bad that he was booed too. I still feel bad.

I hate GWB for making me hate him. God damn him to hell for being such a little fucking fuck that America had no choice left BUT to boo his ass. My heart cries for the fact he was and is such a disgrace that booing is the least of the problem.

[driver8]

15. "a little fucking fuck" describes him perfectly.

He deserved every boo and every middle finger that was flashed his way.

He destroyed this country and left it in shambles...and now he is walking away without a care in the world.

Fuck him.

[teotwawki]

16. na-na-na-na-na-na-na hey hey Good bye!!!!!

I've been humming since he left. I'm too damn relieved to feel sorry for the shrub.

[Adenoid_Hynkel]

17. One of the on-site booers checking in here

My only regret is that we weren't able to boo louder

[Eurobabe]

18. He should have been made to stand up

while the entire crowd sang Na-na-na-na, hey, hey hey GOODBYE!!! That stupid asshat!! I have no sympathy for him at all, him nor Cheney. They got us into this mess. :grr: :nuke:

[Politicalboi]

19. I'm sorry he was booed

And I wasn't there to boo him.

[Liberal_in_LA]

20. for 8 years average americans were kept away from bush, only true believes could go to his campaign

stops or speeches. He was kept in a bubble. January 20th was probably the first real input he got from the American people in 8 years. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[backscatter712]

21. Let me open my copy of Bush on the Couch again.

Along with the megalomania, the dry-drunk issues, the sadism and speech issues, Bush has a deep fear of failure, humiliation, and shame. Oh, and he's got daddy issues like you wouldn't believe.

When Bush went out there for Obama's inauguration, all the security arrangements suddenly catastrophically failed. The illusion of being loved created by his staff's and law-enforcement's efforts to keep him surrounded by supporters was dissolved.

The bubble was popped.

Bush was suddenly confronted by two million Americans, booing him and jeering him with "Na na na na. Hey hey hey, Goodbye!"

And the best thing about it? Poppy was right there, watching.

I'll bet the humiliation was fucking exquisite. I hope the experience broke him.

Suffer, you subhuman sack of shit! I hope that moment of humiliation drives you to blow your own brains out.

[Hekate]

23. What backscatter said. And I hope Dick Cheney's back really, really hurts.

:toast:

Hekate

[Raine]

22. I'm sorry too

I'm sorry that he was so bad that he deserving booing and deserved much much worse than that.

[marions ghost]

24. "feel sorry for him"?

no, it's not necessary or smart to feel sorry for one who has operated like The Decider and his minions.

Americans are far too nice to the criminals who victimize them. Maybe because we don't really understand white collar criminality? Or is it that, like abused spouses, we are in denial that our leaders would truly abuse us...? We also tend to believe that if they really WERE criminals, that somebody would have done something by now (ie. refusal to believe the system is broken).

I'm not sure why this is...why people would even for a minute think that booing was inappropriate (as was voiced by the MSNBC commentators, even the ones we think of as liberal-leaning)....

[santamargarita]

25. I would NOT have felt bad even if he had been tared and feathered

All Republicans hate America!

[lunatica]

26. He showed more dis-respect for the Presidency than anyone else ever did n/t