I wonder how this will play on al-Jazeera

November 23, 2005

I saw a handful of news items yesterday alluding to some British tabloid report on Bush wanting to bomb al-Jazeera. I just passed right over the stories, figuring they couldn’t possibly be true.

As it turns out, there may be something to this.

President Bush expressed interest in bombing the headquarters of the Arabic television network al-Jazeera during a White House conversation with Prime Minister Tony Blair in April 2004, a British newspaper reported Tuesday.

The Daily Mirror report was attributed to two anonymous sources describing a classified document they said contained a transcript of the two leaders’ talk. One source is quoted as saying Bush’s alleged remark concerning the network’s headquarters in Qatar was “humorous, not serious,” while the other said, “Bush was deadly serious.”

It’s not just some sensationalistic piece from the notorious British tabs. There’s an actual transcript of the Bush-Blair discussion, which was leaked to the Daily Mirror. Indeed, the civil servant accused of leaking the transcript is now facing charges under Britain’s Official Secrets Act. And according to at least one person in the room for the discussion, Bush seriously talked about “military action” against the TV station and Blair talked him out of it.

The White House called the report “outlandish and inconceivable” and Downing Street wouldn’t comment.

The question, at this point, isn’t whether Bush actually said these things, it’s whether he was kidding when he did.

We’ve probably all been in meetings or group discussions when someone says something inappropriate. If the person is joking, there’s usually some nervous laughter before a more level-headed person changes the subject or brings some focus to the conversation.

In the case of Bush’s comments about bombing al-Jazeera, Blair didn’t seem to just humor Bush with some polite chuckle.

According to a source quoted in the Daily Mail, Blair told Bush that bombing al-Jazeera “would cause a big problem.” The source was also quoted as saying: “There’s no doubt what Bush wanted to do — and no doubt Blair didn’t want him to do it.”

At the same time, another source in the room said Bush was kidding. Who’s right? Without the transcript and context, we don’t know, at least not yet, but it sure is an interesting question.

Just as an aside, I’m reminded of something Karl Rove said in June about Sen. Dick Durbin, after the Illinois senator compared conditions at Guantanamo Bay to Soviet Gulags.

“Let me just put this in fairly simple terms: Al Jazeera now broadcasts the words of Senator Durbin to the Mideast, certainly putting our troops in greater danger. No more needs to be said about the motives of liberals.”

Well, Karl, I suspect al-Jazeera is now broadcasting the words of the president to the Mideast, which by your standards, certainly puts our troops in greater danger. Does this mean that no more needs to be said about the motives of conservatives?

If it was a joke the proper response would have been uncomfortable laughter or Blair saying, “Come now, George, let’s be serious.”

But responding with it “would cause a big problem” certainly hints that it wasn’t received as a joke by the people sitting in the room.

None of this is at all suprising, this is the same man who says he’d prefer to be a dictator, it would make is life easier.

  • This “I was JOKING! Where’s your sense of humor?” dodge is a standard right-wing tactic when they’re called on some idiotic thing they’ve said. The fact that the rest of the transcript isn’t forthcoming is the best evidence we’ll get that Bush was serious.

    I will say it’s encouraging that these sorts of statements (Bush’s here, Jean Schmidt’s Murtha attack) are at last provoking a firestorm when they come out. The Repubs have been granted automatic MSM teflon for so long they are confounded when the same crap they’ve been saying for years backfires on them now. With the ground rules of acceptable discourse shifting, they’re becoming ever more desperate. Huzzah.

  • The sick thing is that they went ahead and blew up the AJ offices anyway, then went on to say, “oh, we didn’t KNOW that was one of their offices.” And of course, this happened repeatedly.

    If they could get away with bombing the NPR production studios in this country, they’d probably do that too. Instead they dropped the Tomlinson bomb, which is now backfiring, just like everything else they’ve tried to do.

    I’m not the praying type, but three more years in this direction will make you start to hope that there is a higher power that can save of from this administration.

  • Although I would guess our leader Pinoccio was serious, and Blair was somewhat mortified, it would not surprise me that the mushmouth-in-chief was joking but, as with everything else, it came out wrong and garbled, and due to that and the faux Texas accent, Blair lost the context in the translation.

    American sense of humor is a bit different than the British sense of humour (and not just in the spelling), and you throw in the blather that comes out of Bush’s mouth, well fugetaboutit.

  • Perhaps Blair just has a stick up his ass. I mean that is funny stuff! Ronald Regan’s “we start bombing in 5 minutes” comment was a real side splitter. A leader without a sense of humor is just no fun to be around. I can’t wait to see the transcript and read the part where Bush gets Blair with the old “Pull my finger” gag! Priceless!

    There is a time and a place for humor. A meeting between heads of state is not one of them. The man is a menace to diplomacy.

  • May be this is why CBS was so quick to fold up on the Bush/TANG story last year. Those smart bombs can be pretty precise even if the target is in the middle of Manhattan.

  • This is some seriously bad press.

    The Yahoo homepage has a news link right now to an article that starts: “LONDON (Reuters) – Britain has warned media organizations they are breaking the law if they publish details of a leaked document said to show U.S. President George W. Bush wanted to bomb Arabic television station Al Jazeera.”

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20051123/ts_nm/britain_usa_jazeera_dc

    Bush is making all Americans and Brits less safe with his moronic garbage.

  • He may have very well been joking. He’s always had an … um … inappropriate sense of humor, to put it mildly. For example, his snickering at Texas death row inmate Karla Faye Tucker purportedly begging him for her life. I’m sure he’s offended when people don’t get him and his immature, sociopathic sense of humor.

    On the other hand, the Bush Administration has a record of being tone deaf if not antagonistic towards the Muslim world: The torture designed to offend Islamic (really anyone’s) sensibilities, the urinating on the Koran at Gitmo, the burning of an Al-Qaeda corpse in Afghanistan, dropping white phosphorous on Fallujah, sending Karen Hughes out for a hamfisted “public diplomacy” tour …

  • Is the White House still maintaining it
    didn’t happen? I’m missing the dots
    between “inconceivable” and “joke.”

    Who said it was a joke, who would be
    in a position to know? I heard Tucker
    Carlson say it was, but how the hell
    would he know?

    Something missing here. At any rate,
    it doesn’t go anywhere, because at
    worst you have a sheepish Bush admitting
    it was a joke, and then what do you do?
    Call him a liar?

    No story.

  • Sorry, I should have written “Bush is making all Americans and Brits less safe with his criminality”, not “moronic garbage”.

  • “There is a time and a place for humor. A meeting between heads of state is not one of them. The man is a menace to diplomacy.”

    The man IS a menace to diplomacy. But humor, when properly used and genuine, can be VERY effective, including at meetings between heads of state. Tasteful humor, that is, not the sort of gut-level neanderthal man humor which is the hall mark of our douchebag in chief (like looking under furniture for WMDs, remember that one?).

  • The evidence is weighing against it being a joke. Despite his awkward and often inappropriate sense of humor (any WMDs under that table?,etc), the response to it doesn’t appear that it was taken in jest or that it had the tone of being in jest. Plus, the numerous AJ offices that have been “accidently” bombed shows a willingness to pursue the policy indirectly. That the current administration has done all it can do to alter the reality of the reality based community here in the states, including going as far as producing its own propaganda under the guise of real news, shows how they view the first amendment in this country – if we dont deserve free speech, other countries, in their opinion, have no need for it at all. The disdain for the truth with this group, especially for any information which would paint an unflattering opinion of them, or expose their incompetence, leads them to their only recourse – lies, propaganda, and direct attacks on anyone who disagrees, to whatever extent they can get away with it.

  • Bush may have just been talking about getting bombed with Al Jarreau and Ben Gazzara. You know how these mistransliteralizationings go down in li’l ol’ Crawfert. Yuk, yuk. Heh.

  • Now O’Reilly will have Bush as an excuse for his proposal to let AlQaida attack San Francisco, is neocon’s sense of humor. Didn’t Reagan announce a nuclear attack on radio once?

  • This would never be tolerated from a Democrat, even in jest. The GOP machine talking heads would be parroting this point ad naseum.

    Ultimately, I don’t care if it was joke or not. It should not have been said by a President ever.

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