To commemorate, let's look at my George W. Bush (pbuh) video countdown!:
White Men Can't Jump said the film, and "white men can't dance" is the prevailing wisdom.
Whether you love him or hate him, everybody knows that if George W. Bush comes across "prevailing wisdom" his response is "bump that, dawg." As Third Edge of the Sword counts down favourite George W. Bush video moments, here's some footage of him schooling a bunch of tribal Africans on the top notch dance moves that white people invented in the disco era:
Also, read the warm-up article about George W. Bush's (pbuh) arrival:
But fighting real enemies is hard work, and left-wingers don't really like that sort of stuff. In a way, protesting a retired President is like a reflexive anti-American version of "Hugs for Darfur". Doing things is hard. Joining the army or starting a mercenary firm to attack those who engage in violence in Sudan or Iraq or Pakistan takes work, and offer no opportunities to shamelessly advertise your "compassion". Hugs for Darfur won't help a single person, but provide a security blanket of such for the inadequacies of the Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism members. They didn't stop Saddam's starving of his own children while Iraqi missiles were equipped with circuits from smuggled Playstation2s, George W. Bush did that. All throughout the 90s liberals like Steve Notley whined about the Taliban. George W. Bush removed them from office, and in response Steve's equally vile sister Rachel had no kind words to say about him.
And finally, tune into the grande finale of last year's visit to Edmonton from President George W. Bush (pbuh) with the event review, complete with the questions I would have asked"
Once inside though, far from the annoying protestors we were able to have a couple of drinks. No good beer, though. It's a shame Shaw couldn't get some good American beers for a good American President. (Sam Adams comes to mind, since Texas microbrews are not available in Alberta to the best of my knowledge). Since George W. Bush doesn't drink anymore, after I had a drink I made sure I had one for him.
He also took the time to praise Canada, praise the oilsands, and quip that he'd rather America bought their energy from a place like Canada that likes America versus places in the Middle East that hate them. More applause. He also took his time to say how important it is for trade and not falling into economic protectionism (more applause). He emphasized that in the long run free trade not only did a better job of helping people starving in Africa than foreign aid (applause) but also that free markets lead to freedom and that leads to giving people hope for the future and away from the thugs who collect hopeless people to recruit as suicide bombers (applause).
Oh by the way Bush-haters, you wanted a verbal flub in his hourlong speech? There it was: Bush talked about Canada being in the Pacific Theatre, and he meant the European Theatre. That's it. That's all.
Bush then thanked us all again and welcomed Kelly Hrudey, who sat down in what looked like a weird version of HNIC After Hours with the worst sound guys on the planet. Seriously, for Bush's first 10-15 minutes they had to keep adjusting the sound because Bush's microphones and Kelly's microphones weren't operating at the same volume. This is elementary PA system operation here, that any half-competant amateur learns his first week. These professionals couldn't figure it out at all and finally ended up just giving Bush a handheld microphone (more applause).
There really was a lot of applause.
As the show ended, those of us who didn't have access to the Canada Place underground parkade had to go up and walk past the protesters. You remember them. I blogged about them extensively on Tuesday morning. I posted a couple tweets about them too, but the thing that struck me was how much it had in common with 1984's infamous "Two Minute Hate". This was stretched out to 3 hours and change, but the essence was still the same. Again it was covered in the Tuesday morning blogpost, but there was pure anger and hatred outside. Vicious and unfounded.
Contrast with the attendees: smiling, laughing, conversing. I talked with small business leaders, the sister of a member of EEDC (who is planning to complain a lot about the technical problems), somebody from Dave Hancock's office, and several hot asian girls with their younger-than-me boyfriends in fancy suits. There was much more ethnic diversity than the white folk angry screaming [and singing Bob Dylan songs which are even worse! -ed] outside. In the end you ended up with some successful people of all walks of life who decided to go see George W. Bush speak -- and a bunch of furious brain-dead whities who just want to prove to themselves they aren't racist when really they are, and show their opposition to violence by demanding that a former U.S. President be murdered in cold blood.
