SteynOnSouthpark

I'm reading Mark Steyn's article in the Chicago Sun-Times^† about his recent meeting with President Bush in the Oval Office. Steyn's accounts of his meeting (along with several other conservative journalists) have been all rather telling of the picture of George W. Bush that the MSM would report if only they liked the answer. For example, Bush actually reads the books he says he does (which turns out to be a statement not about the illiteracy jokes but rather pretentious book-dropping):

And you think you're just having some sort of social chit-chat. My assistant, Tiffany, got a call this morning from an assistant to the President, who said Mark told the President that he had Andrew Roberts' e-mail address. Do you think you could ask Andrew Roberts to get in touch with the Oval Office, because we would like him to stop by when next he's in Washington. The President would like to talk about his book with him. I mean, he is absolutely not the guy, this sort of fratboy idiot that they paint him as. He's a man who is greatly...he's not interested in...you know, when Al Gore says that he's reading Stendhal, The Red And The Black, we think what a pretentious twit.

Anyways, what really caught my attention was from the aforementioned Sun-Times column, when Steyn asked Bush a question about "being on the offensive" (militarily) in Iraq, and got an extremely impassioned defense (hmmm, a defense on the offense):

Still, it was a different conversation than most Bush encounters with the media-political class. I happened to be plugging my book on a local radio show this week just as a Minnesota "conservative" (ish) Democrat joined the herd of stampeding donkeys explaining why they were now disowning their vote in favor of the Iraq war. What a sorry sight. It's not a question of whether you're "for" or "against" a war. Once you're in it, the choice is to win it or lose it. And, if you're arguing for what will look to most of the world like the latter option, you better understand what the consequences are. In this case, it would, in effect, end the American moment.

Does that bother people? Bush said something, en passant, that I brooded on all the way home. Asked about poll numbers, he said that 25 percent of the population are always against the war -- any war.

Now Steyn met with Bush on Thursday, and though the boys at Comedy Central can string together an episode in 3 days, -16 days is something of a stretch, so its awfully hard to say that Parker and Stone cribbed the President's lines.

What on earth am I talking about? Easy: South Park episode #1009: The Mystery of the Urinal Deuce. In the episode, Stan and Kyle are on the case to find out who really caused 9/11, only to be caught up in a massive web of conspiracies when a webmaster for a 9/11 conspiracy site is murdered by President Bush.

At the episode's conclusion, they found out that this entire time all the 9/11 conspiracy sites were in fact run by the Department of Justice, the murdered web-designer was alive and well, and that it was all part of President George W. Bush's master plan to make people believe that the all powerful U.S. federal government had engineered the attacks. When Kyle demanded to know why Bush didn't just tell people the truth about 9/11, the President responded

Kyle: I knew it! You didn't plan 9/11 and you really didn't shoot that guy!
Bush: Boys, you don't understand. People need to think we are all-powerful. That we control the world. If they know we weren't in charge of 9/11 then... we appear to control nothing.
Kyle: Well why don't you just tell people the truth?!
Bush: We do that too. And most people believe the truth. But one fourth of the population is retarded! If they wanna believe we control everything with intricate plans, why not let them?

(emphasis mine). I really didn't have much else to say on the matter, but I thought this was pretty interesting.

^† I've actually been to Chicago and have a photograph of myself in front of the Tribune and Sun-Times buildings downtown.

Bonus 9/11 South Park conspiracy theory link: An actual 9/11 conspiracy website discussing the episode:

I think the southpark guys will give about as much love to 911 truthers as they give to mel gibson. Probably less. Any conspiracy theory that winds up pointing at a cabal of zionists will certainly get the mark of insanity from a bunch of hollywood jewish folks. I bet you anything this will provide great confidence to the "I don't read, or investigate, but still know you're all crazy." crowd. Unabashed ignorance has become a badge of patriotism anymore. It works because it makes ill informed people feel in the know.

Matt stone, one of the creator of South Park, once said that he is a registered Republican. I don't want to imply anything, but he is also a secular Sephardic Jew. He doesn't like Michael Moore and once called him "fat".

This is going to be a hit piece, no doubt.

Jews have nothing to do with 9/11 being an inside job, Trey and Matt mislead your easily influenced mind into thinking that 9/11 theorists hate jews.

Riiiight...