Ramblings' Journal

UK's Guardian encourages Bush's assassination

The Guardian has printed an incendiary editorial which excoriates the Bush Administration. This, in and of itself, is not outside the norm for the British newspaper.

The problem with the piece in question is a quote near the end.

On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

You want to encourage people to vote, that's one thing. You want to support one party or another, that's perfectly fine. I'm all for expressing your opinion regarding the political process.

But to beg for (or encourage) an assassin to take out the sitting President, regardless of political party is not only out of line, but something that in this country at least is borderline illegal.

I'm sure they wouldn't feel very good if someone her wished for a sniper to take out the Queen or the British PM.

They ought to give some serious thought before they go out of the way to become the non-official organ of terrorists and assassins everywhere.

UPDATE: The Guardian has since posted a retraction and apology of sorts.

Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of the Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action - an intention he believed regular readers of his humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind.

I hope you'll excuse me if I find this half-assed "apology" a bit hard to swallow.

Posted by mhking at October 24, 2004 06:41 PM