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The Next Time You Say, 'Bush Lied, People Died' -- Think
Townhall.com ^ | August 7, 2008 | Larry Elder

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.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: bds; bushderangement; ferrell; hollywoodidiots
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To: vanishing liberty

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.


21 posted on 08/06/2008 11:19:16 PM PDT by marron
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To: max americana
I haven’t paid for ONE single film of Will Ferrell. Not even one. Axxo uploaded Semi Pro and Blades of Glory on bittorrent so I DL’d it, and Talladega Nights was a gift for Christmas. He’s the most overrated comic in Hollywood aside from Ben Stiller and the worst “comic” movie this year was Semi Pro. God, how can this untalented hack get those roles?

That becomes obvious if you observe the lefties for a while. The truth is that, not only have they lost the ability to see beauty, they actually loathe beautiful things. They have the obsession with defiling anything pure or beautiful. TV and movies are nothing but non-stop "deconstruction" of society's pillars, marriage, family, love, people, the suburbs, the country, etc.. They ridicule good people and promote criminals and thugs (NFL, NBA, etc.). They spit on stories of heroism and embrace the amoral anti-hero. They scoff at Michelangelo but exalt piss-christ. They sneer at Shakespeare as a "dead white male" and recite rap lyrics. They simply detest the good, the pure and the beautiful. Once you understand that, it is easy to see how idiots like Ferrel keep making movies.
22 posted on 08/07/2008 12:20:12 AM PDT by fr_freak
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To: Kaslin

The Next Time You Say, ‘Bush Lied, People Died’ — Think ... 550 metric tonnes of yellow cake uranium.


23 posted on 08/07/2008 12:42:40 AM PDT by TigersEye (Berlin '36 ... Olympics for murdering regimes. ... Beijing '08)
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To: roses of sharon

“... Bush will eventually be ranked with Lincoln and Roosevelt among our greatest presidents...”

I agree 100%.


24 posted on 08/07/2008 12:54:27 AM PDT by karnage
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To: AdmSmith; Berosus; Convert from ECUSA; dervish; Ernest_at_the_Beach; Fred Nerks; george76; ...

SNL pinheads interviewed on NPR.


25 posted on 08/07/2008 12:57:54 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/_______Profile hasn't been updated since Friday, May 30, 2008)
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To: Kaslin

Bush going to sleep at night caused people to die?


26 posted on 08/07/2008 1:51:12 AM PDT by Impy (Spellcheck hates Obama, you should too.)
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To: Kaslin

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.


27 posted on 08/07/2008 3:00:09 AM PDT by driftless2
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To: TigersEye

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.


28 posted on 08/07/2008 3:51:00 AM PDT by Erik Latranyi (Too many conservatives urge retreat when the war of politics doesn't go their way.)
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To: Kaslin

BTTT


29 posted on 08/07/2008 5:10:19 AM PDT by kellynla (Freedom of speech makes it easier to spot the idiots! Semper Fi!)
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To: Ramius
Here's a Guinness for using "contemporaneous":


30 posted on 08/07/2008 5:46:57 AM PDT by Tax-chick (When life gives you habaneros, make hot sauce!)
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To: max americana
He’s the most overrated comic in Hollywood aside from Ben Stiller and the worst “comic” movie this year was Semi Pro.

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.

31 posted on 08/07/2008 6:20:42 AM PDT by Lou L
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To: marron

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.


32 posted on 08/07/2008 6:30:21 AM PDT by astounded (The Democrat Party is a Clear and Present Danger to the USA)
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To: Tax-chick

Mmmmm... Guinness...

I’d have used more big words if’n I’d known it paid in beer. :-)


33 posted on 08/07/2008 8:04:08 AM PDT by Ramius (Personally, I give us... one chance in three. More tea?)
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To: Ramius

Positive behaviors should be rewarded.


34 posted on 08/07/2008 9:09:31 AM PDT by Tax-chick (When life gives you habaneros, make hot sauce!)
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To: Kaslin

The Next Time You Say, ‘Bush Lied, People Died’, somebody should punch you in the face.


35 posted on 08/07/2008 9:15:50 AM PDT by Cinnamon Girl (McCain calls it "radical islamic terrorism," the dems don't refer to it at all)
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To: Erik Latranyi
"When the going got tough in Iraq, Democrats wanted to run."

They still want to run. Further, they want to demonize the President and what few Patriots are still around in DC and the rest of the country. The only reason they haven't tried their best to impeach the President is that every democrat that voted for this war would have to go too. Instead they decided to pull their panties up over their faces and go back on their word like the worthless cowards we know them to be. Most of Hollywood's politically naive "Stars" are just trying to give them cover for their cowardice and political expediency.
36 posted on 08/07/2008 10:02:32 AM PDT by Liberty Valance (Keep a simple manner for a happy life :o)
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To: marron

Time for another “Mom, Apple Pie, and the Ghost of Quagmires Past”?


37 posted on 08/07/2008 10:09:11 AM PDT by conservatism_IS_compassion (The conceit of journalistic objectivity is profoundly subversive of democratic principle.)
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

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.


38 posted on 08/07/2008 10:22:20 AM PDT by marron
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To: roses of sharon
Is Jane Mayer the same person who leaked the sealed information about Linda Tripp's arrest (for a piece in The New Yorker, I think)? That was during the height of the Clinton Administration's war on Linda Tripp--the arrest had happened because she was the victim of a prank by "friends" who swiped something and put it in her purse without her knowledge.

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.

39 posted on 08/07/2008 12:04:23 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: woofie

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.


40 posted on 08/07/2008 12:29:38 PM PDT by ridesthemiles
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