“Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere…nope, no weapons over there…maybe under here?”Should this statement be coming out of the mouth of a president who has deceitfully led this country into a war based on opinion and not actual evidence?
Well, that is exactly what our country’s representative blurted out at the Radio and Television News Correspondents Association’s annual dinner last Wednesday night.
As Bush jokingly showed photos of himself looking behind Oval Office furniture, he made remarks that many at the dinner found funny journalists and politicians just to name a few.
But now the question is whether or not Bush, whose administration is currently under fire for alleged knowledge about the events leading up to 9/11 and the eminent war with Iraq, should have taken such a serious issue so lightly.
“The Democrats will go after anything,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie to ABC. “The fact is that this is the custom in these things.”
The dinner, which for years has featured political and topical humor, is supposed to be seen as a playful event.
Gillespie pointed out that other presidents have made jokes about very serious matters and that people in the room obviously saw the humor in Bush’s comments at the time.
“To play it back now in a different context is unfair,” he said.
But context is just the factor that makes Bush’s remarks unethical and frankly, seriously disgusting.
Given the current status of the world, and our country, Bush is not in the right context or environment to be making such remarks. He has sent thousands of troops from our country along with other allies’ troops into a dangerous situation that they had no factual basis for being there in the first place.
Over 600 U.S. troops have died since the war began a year ago, and with this information, and the context of current 9/11 trials, Bush certainly did not seem to take this information to heart when determining what he was going to talk about.
Perhaps he doesn’t know the meaning of the term “ethics.” Journalists have to follow these rules, and many others, on a daily basis; what makes the president any different? He was addressing news correspondents, who know what is appropriate from what is not, and should have thought twice about this touchy subject, especially when he is at the end of the finger that’s being pointed at him in terms of who knew what about the terrorist attacks.
Now, it is no new information that Bush isn’t exactly the most intelligent person, but what idiot would joke about his own shortcomings, especially when those mistakes cost hundreds of people their lives? It seems that Republicans are trying to cover up his continuous stupidity by pointing the argument towards the history of the dinner.
Even though the people at the dinner laughed, that doesn’t mean that Bush had the right to make such remarks; the people in that room would not have been laughing had they had sons, daughters, husbands, and wives who were slaughtered overseas.
Erin Joyce is a senior majoring in Communication.