David V. Matthews – 10/28/07

This page was last updated on November 4, 2007.

Stark was right on Bush; David V. Matthews; Beaver County Times; October 28, 2007.

For background, in previous letters Mr. Matthews told us there’s no liberal media bias, President Bush committed treason, he’s positive creation played no role in our evolution, President Bush plans to nuke Iran this year, “Centrism is Bushism,” the Bush administration may be “conducting warrantless surveillance upon” us, and the Bush administration is “warlike and imperialist.”

Below is a detailed critique of the subject letter.

“Wednesday’s editorial ‘Beyond words’ condemned Democratic U.S. Rep. Pete Stark for stating during a Congressional debate that, in Stark’s words, the troops in Iraq ‘get their heads blown off for the president’s amusement.’

“The editorial thinks Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi should punish Stark for his ‘reckless’ and ‘politically stupid’ comments. Imagine, saying George W. Bush finds the war he started amusing.

“But Bush does. Some readers might remember his appearance at the 60th annual Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association dinner in Washington, DC, on March 24, 2004. There, he presented a slide show showing him looking around the Oval Office for those pesky weapons of mass destruction.

“‘Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be here somewhere,’ he said. ‘No, no weapons over there … Maybe under here?’

“His audience of journalists and politicians laughed hard during this routine. Imagine how most, if not all, of his audience would have reacted if a Democrat had found the deaths of Americans (and Iraqis) so darned amusing.”

[RWC] Below is what I wrote on the Times website regarding Mr. Matthews’ letter.

“As Elizabeth Anonymous did a few weeks ago, Mr. Matthews omitted context to draw conclusions about President Bush’s views. As was the case for Ms. Anonymous’ example, President Bush was giving an address on an occasion when speakers were expected to lampoon themselves. In this case, for the better part of 10 minutes President Bush poked fun at himself (and other administration members) and the mainstream media’s view of him. The ‘slideshow’ was actually a series of everyday White House pictures captioned for humor. The two ‘searching for WMD’ photos were out of a total of about 18.

“While I probably would not have included the ‘searching for WMD’ photos, I believe it takes quite a leap of imagination to get from Mr. Bush poking fun at himself and the press to Mr. Bush finding ‘the deaths of Americans (and Iraqis) so darned amusing.’

“There’s one last thing Mr. Matthews neglected to mention. The longest part of President Bush’s speech by far was the conclusion, which was a tribute to our armed forces. In any case, don’t take my word for it. You can view the speech on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yJF13BS-hE) and judge for yourself.”