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TechnoratiMandela Still Alive After Embarrassing Bush Remark
JOHANNESBURG - Nelson Mandela is still very much alive despite an embarrassing gaffe by U.S. President George W. Bush, who alluded to the former South African leader's death in an attempt to explain sectarian violence in Iraq.
"It's out there. All we can do is reassure people, especially South Africans, that President Mandela is alive," Achmat Dangor, chief executive officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation, said as Bush's comments received worldwide coverage.
In a speech defending his administration's Iraq policy, Bush said former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's brutality had made it impossible for a unifying leader to emerge and stop the sectarian violence that has engulfed the Middle Eastern nation.
"I heard somebody say, 'Where's Mandela?' Well, Mandela's dead because Saddam Hussein killed all the Mandelas," Bush, who has a reputation for verbal faux pas, said in a press conference in Washington on Thursday.
Jailed for 27 years for fighting white minority rule, Mandela became South Africa's first black president in 1994. He won a Nobel Peace Prize for preaching racial harmony and guiding the nation peacefully into the post-apartheid era.
References to his death -- Mandela is now 89 and increasingly frail -- are seen as insensitive in South Africa.
© 2007 Reuters
25 Comments so far
Show AllWhy would George W. Bush think that Nelson Mandela of South Africa was dead? Unless he was deliberately fed that falsehood by one of his clueless advisors. He had absloutely nothing to gain from this gaff. What if one of them really out to make him seem like the idiot he really is?
But of course, George is always in a tizzy and makes up news as he goes along. After all, he is a University failure at best. So, its time for him to say goodbye to the White House.
I don't know how you guys can laugh in the face of such an abortion... or how some can keep defending an obvious drunk/drugo like Bush and say a story like this is just fluff (next will be: "you know what he meant; he meant just fire the small missles.).
This CHIMP has his finger on the button! He's clearly ready to nuke himself into the rewritten history books.
Talk about an out of touch Dr. Evil! I keep expecting "Mini-Me" to come around the corner and him to say: "Mini-Me, you complete me."
It would be funny, if it weren't so terrifying.
Specifically, it was Dick Cheney who called Mandela a "Terrorist". That was not too long after Rumsfeld's famous photo-op with his good friend Saddam.
From his appearance, I think bush might have been drunk while making these statements. That would explain his lapse of... well, maybe not. There's very little activity in his head, drunk or sober.
Thank you all; I laughed till tears came to my eyes.
ashwood is right. This is just "fluff reporting" and a bunch of distracting giggling. What Bush said, strangely, makes sense.
So who is responsible for carrying him off in a straight-jacket???
I seem to recall another Bush gaffe where in a speech, he referred to Africa as a nation. I wonder if he ever figured that one out? After all Mr. President, Alaska is an island, right? You know the one the Atlas publishing companies put in a box next to Hawaii because there is insufficient room on the page to accurately depict where the state actually is located? What a f@#$ing tool!
LOL @ Bush.
HDune September 21st, 2007 2:12 pm
"What a disgrace! Just when you thought Bush couldn't say anything more stupid he comes out with this remark. He's completely ignorant and oblivious about anything outside the little box he lives in. What an embarrassment."
My thoughts, exactly!
Bush's faux pas shows that he doesn't even know which continent he's talking about.
Any child can grow up to be president, we are told. With Bush as a model, they don't even have to grow up.
Remember, Dick Cheney voted against a 1986 resolution calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and recognition of the African National Congress. Bush speaks his mind?
I can't believe people are making such a big deal about this. Bush might have been slightly unclear, but you could tell was talking about a hypothetical iraqi Mandela.
This is just fluff reporting, like the reports on Kerry's "stuck in iraq" joke. It distracts people from important things like the fight over Habeas Corpus and Bush's illegal spying.
The idiot reconfirms his stupidity.
shur makes me proud too bee an amerrkan. Hes a strate tokker, n I like dat.
What else can one expect from an evil personified idiot????
I wonder how majority of Americans elected such a criminal, who is thousands times EVIL than Hitler???????
-Just to remind the history: Nelson Mandela was labelled as a "terrorist" by the US government, when he was leading his anti-apartheid movement against the white racist government. OFCOURSE, THIS IS NOTHING UNUSUAL FROM THE US.
Bush reaffirms his status as an imbecile.
amazing that idiot Bush still remains the president of the USA. when will the American people begin smelling the coffee.
PS: Mandela is revered as a great leader. Bush's remark, even as an analogy, is unfortunate.
Why do they ever let that guy open his mouth? Is this some Rovian strategy to "bond with the common American?" Or are the Rethuglican elite who pull the puppet strings that inept?
What a disgrace! Just when you thought Bush couldn't say anything more stupid he comes out with this remark. He's completely ignorant and oblivious about anything outside the little box he lives in. What an embarrassment.
ROTFLMAO. Sorry folks, this is so embarrassing, I just gotta laugh it off.
"The truth about W's insanity have been greatly underestimated"
AD--don't you mean MISunderestimated??
The truth about W's insanity have been greatly underestimated.
I can see what Bush was trying to say - that all the Iraqi Mandelas have been killed by thugs like Saddam. Maybe true, but more to the point, which really needs to be addressed is how the US was complicit in some of those killings while it gave arms to Saddam, and what about the killings and imprisonment of our own Mandelas here in the US?????
That W. He is really from another planet! Can we send him on that Mars mission? Just getting him on that rocket would be "Mission Accomplished" for the Earth.
Mandela clearly is a better man than Bush could ever hope to be. The contrast is too obvious.