Anti-Bush isn't anti-American

[cal04]

LIKE every Australian, I am all ears for whatever gems of wisdom Rupert Murdoch has to offer us whenever he returns to the land of his birth. There are important things he could tell us. Like who advised him to dye his thinning locks that amusing beetroot colour, for instance.

But no, all we got from "the quintessential American Australian", as he was introduced at a dinner on Tuesday, was a stern warning to be nice to the Yanks. Australians must resist "the facile, reflexive, unthinking anti-Americanism that has gripped much of Europe", he told the $35,000-a-table dinner thrown for him by the American Australian Association.

(snip)
What Rupert detects in this country is not anti-Americanism but anti-George Bushism. He might conflate the two, but the rest of us are perfectly capable of making the distinction. It is thus:

AMERICA: friend and ally, home of the brave and land of the free, cultural beacon, willing to tolerate even phone-throwing Russell Crowe in its midst.

GEORGE BUSH: dangerous incompetent, mired in self-inflicted Iraq war disaster, rejected even by own people at recent midterm elections.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/innocence-lost-amid-labors-list-of-horrors/2006/11/17/1163266776738.html?page=2

[aquart]

1. Anti-Bush is pro-American.

That bastard is killing us.

[ixion]

3. yep, you said it

:applause:

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. It's almost as if the Friends of Dubya got their talking points this week

But - runs the more sophisticated argument - America we like, this American president we don't. This is a comforting argument. It separates anti-America from anti-Bush.

However, it is also a cop-out.

Blair speech, Monday night

You think the White House told them that Bush needed some support, after the rejection of all things Republican at the polls, and Rumsfeld had to walk the plank?

[CJCRANE]

4. I'd like to see Murdoch & Blair

tell an audience of Americans that they're anti-American
(for voting en masse against the Bush-Republican policies in the midterms).