Posted on 08/06/2008 10:08:17 PM PDT by Kaslin
Listening to National Public Radio on the way home from work, I found the interview -- at least at first -- fun enough.
NPR's Terry Gross interviewed comedian/actor Will Ferrell, actor John C. Reilly and writer/director Adam McKay -- to promote a new film.
All yukked about their careers, and then the interviewer asked Adam McKay how he and Ferrell began their collaboration years ago on "Saturday Night Live." "We had several writers writing a lot of the political stuff," said McKay. "But yeah, I had written a couple pretty big ones with Will. We actually wrote a sketch right after (Bush) was elected where Dick Cheney came out and said, 'Now a message from the president of the United States,' and it was Dick Cheney. And he was telling everyone, 'If you make less than $250,000, turn the channel right now because this doesn't apply to you.' And then he would say, 'If you make less than $10 million, turn the channel. What I'm about to say doesn't apply to you,' until finally it was a billion dollars. And he literally said, 'Put all your money in defense stocks. We're going to start a lot of wars. Oh my God, we're going to make a fortune off oil.' We wrote the most absurd things for him. And Will comes in as George Bush and he's found a stray dog in the parking lot and he's asking Cheney if he can keep him. And then he leaves, and Cheney goes on to talk about how we're going to rip this country off."
Then McKay took off his comic-writer hat and turned somber. Speaking seriously, without humor or satire, he said, "And I looked at the sketch about a year ago, and it's all completely accurate. And sadly it had -- "
" -- All came true, yeah," interrupted Ferrell. All came true?
I pulled into a restaurant, where I stayed less than an hour. I got back into my car, the radio still on NPR, but this time a different host, and a very different subject matter. Wounded Iraq war vets told their stories.
Staff Sgt. Jay Wilkerson: "Two IEDs hit my Humvee. The first IED hit the left door of the passenger (compartment) and blew the door off the Humvee, and the scout, who was behind the driver, he was killed. His body went with the door. His legs stayed in the vehicle. His name was Staff Sgt. Robert Hernandez. He was also my best friend. And the second RPG missile came, and it came inside the Humvee and exploded. And that's where the shrapnel went everywhere. And at that time, I was knocked unconscious. I woke up in Walter Reed Hospital.
"My family was coming in to see me. I mean family members like my brother, my mother, my sister, were coming and hugging me and kissing -- and I was like, 'Who are these people kissing me?' I didn't know who they were. And I had to learn how to walk again. I was in a wheelchair. Then I was walking with a cane. And I had to learn how to dress myself, how to eat, how to talk again, because I stutter now. You feel like you're a child in a man's body. I can't hear out of my left ear. I have a constant ringing. And my left eye is hurting because it stays dry. It doesn't -- there's no tears. And my face, the jaw is off-line. I had multiple problems with my fingers -- I can't bend my fingers. I'm constantly having neck problems -- I had a C5 (injury). I can't sleep all night. I can only sleep like three hours a day, and that's a good night for me.
"You know, it was actually easier for me if I would have died in Iraq. My neuropsychologist has told me my left side of my brain has been injured severely. So that is your ability to multi-task, to handle problems. So what I do, I watch game shows or look at crossword puzzles, and even though I'm in school or at the VA learning these processes, I do it on my own, to try to speed up my healing process. I'm trying to enhance my own ability because I'm a father. I have two kids. I have to show them that, hey, even though Daddy's not himself, you still have to work hard to achieve something."
I understand opposing the President on policy grounds. I cannot, however, get my head around people like Ferrell and company, who, in effect, tell wounded soldiers that they suffer not because President Bush thought the mission important for national security, not because the President considered Iraq a "grave and gathering danger."
No, they endure their daily ordeal because Darth Cheney and his minion Bush lied -- sending over 4,000 valiant men and women to their graves, with over 30,000 incurring wounds, in order to make their rich friends richer still.
Mssrs. Ferrell and McKay, meet Staff Sgt. Wilkerson.
Its a mystery to me. I thought at the time, why would they deny what had already been found? Whose interest does it serve? Who has that power?
And I don’t have an answer. I really don’t.
Remember when CIA reported that there was no uranium smuggling in Africa? Right after that, Libya surrendered and part of what they gave up was their yellow-cake. Half of it was older stuff they had smuggled in from Niger years before, and then admitted to and documented. The other half they smuggled in more recently... from Niger, again, and never told anyone about.
No one in the press ever asked, if there is no yellowcake smuggling in Niger, how did Nigerienne yellowcake get to Libya? There is occasionally an astonishing lack of curiousity in the press, and it was CIA’s own WMD division that was claiming that Niger didn’t do contraband. And that Bush was lying about it. You’ll remember the whole story, but no one ever asked about Libya.
And Bush never mentioned it, not even to defend himself, not even when he was on the edge of losing an election over it.
Bush and Cheney have taken a tremendous pounding over the decision to invade Iraq, there is no connection to Bin Ladin ad nauseaum. But its not a secret that the first World Trade Center attack was led by guys arriving from Baghdad, who then escaped back to Baghdad. Its not a secret, but its also not talked about. And the cousin of the guy who led the first attack led the second attack on 911, but there is no connection. None at all. If you mention it, you’re delusional. Just get it out of your mind.
There are people who want to impeach Bush over the Iraq war. And yet he never defends himself. He just keeps taking care of business but never says a word. Its a mystery to me.
The Next Time You Say, ‘Bush Lied, People Died’ — Think ... 550 metric tonnes of yellow cake uranium.
“... Bush will eventually be ranked with Lincoln and Roosevelt among our greatest presidents...”
I agree 100%.
SNL pinheads interviewed on NPR.
Bush going to sleep at night caused people to die?
Like Robin Williams I’ve never found anything remotely funny in anything Will Ferrell has done. Williams at least is not too bad as a serious actor. Ferrell is just lame.
Fact: Democrats voted in favor of war with Iraq
Fact: The American people supported war with Iraq
Fact: Iraq did not comply with UN mandates
Fact: Iraq was shooting at our jets in the no-fly zone
These are irrefutable facts.
When the going got tough in Iraq, Democrats wanted to run.
BTTT
While I thought Ferrell had some good skits and characters on SNL, his movies have been terrible. All the genuine humor in a 90-minute movie could be condensed into 5 minutes. All his characters are the same. He's this generation's Robin Williams.
Don’t forget Ansar al Islaam, an al Qaeda offshoot that fled from Afghanistan to set up shop in the hills of northeast Iraq after the US Afghanistan incursion in 2001. US Special Forces fought a little-publicized pitched battle against this group in April 2003, taking down their installation and routing them. This belies the MSM view that there “was no al Qaeda in Iraq before the US incursion”. That is an outright lie that too many people in the USA believe out fo Bush Hatred.
Mmmmm... Guinness...
I’d have used more big words if’n I’d known it paid in beer. :-)
Positive behaviors should be rewarded.
The Next Time You Say, ‘Bush Lied, People Died’, somebody should punch you in the face.
Time for another “Mom, Apple Pie, and the Ghost of Quagmires Past”?
Somebody needs to write this stuff down. A lot of it has been successfully flushed down the old memory hole, though, I don’t know if you could find links for some of this stuff, it happened, and then its like some kind of collective amnesia. We all agree to agree that it never happened.
I wonder then about history, how it ever can approach truth. I know what a high percentage of what we read in the press is bogus, a very high percentage. But if I were going to write a history about a particular era or event, the first thing anyone would do, would be to read the press accounts at the time, and that would form the starting point for your history. And yet I know that, at least these days, most of what I read in the papers is false. So how does any historian have a chance of ever getting it right, even if they want to?
I guess he has the advantage of knowing how it all turned out in the end, but it seems even that gets passed through a kaleidoscope lens sometimes.
If the Clintonistas had devoted half the energy to fighting Islamofascists as they did to attacking people like Linda Tripp and Ken Starr, the 9/11 attacks would never have happened.
C-SPAN the other day gave air time to Vincent Bugliosi to publicize his book.
IMO, Will Farrell has a 14 year old mind and he is stuck in that time frame.
He is also stuck on stupid on the overall safety of this country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.