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Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover
mahiskali writes "After apologizing for using a likeness of former President George W. Bush's head in the season finale of the first season of 'Game of Thrones,' HBO has digitally altered the offending scene. After releasing an formal apology, HBO proceeded to yank the episode off all digital platforms, as well as halt distribution of the Season 1 box sets. The episode is now back with an altered head; more hair, less chin. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss later clarified, 'We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.'"
Because we're all sensitive douchenozzles.
How DARE someone offend my sacrosanct sensibilities! A pox on their houses! A boycott! A Congressional inquiry!!
I shall not rest until my right to not be offended is acknowledged!
This is either some kind of "clever" ploy to make already existing box sets scarce or a way to push people to pirate the unedited versions.
Or HBO really just has no balls and can't stand up for themselves. Probably that.
I see nothing saying the former president is even aware of it, much less has a beef about it.
That's largely been by design.
Unlike some other former presidents who during from 1/01-01/09 spent a great deal of time relentlessly attacking the then President and attempting to undermine him... 43 seems to have opted to allow the current president to succeed or fail on his own.
How horrible is it that a previous President be respectful to their successor... you know... the complete opposite of what this President has done to his predecessor.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
I noticed the similarity, but only after I saw a still frame. If nothing had been said in the commentaries, I never would have noticed.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
For all his faults, I genuinely believe that George W Bush would laugh at this and not be offended. He is a goober, but a goober with a sense of humor.
If it had been a fake Obama head, there would have been a much bigger uproar. Personally, while I think it was intentional & tasteless, I don't think it deserved as much attention as it got. The directors probably could have gotten away with it if they didn't mention anything about it in the commentaries.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I think if it had been very obvious that it was Bush or Obama's head, I would have thought it was in bad taste, but when you actually see the head, you would never have known that was a Bush head if they had not have said something.
I doubt he watches much outside of The Cartoon Network...
If so, he's far more intelligent than I previously gave him credit for...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Yeah, but he's too much a goober to know he should be deeply deeply offended by this, so the vocal minority has to be doubly offended on his behalf!
(On a serious note, I do agree with your point. This seems like the sort of thing that'd just roll off his back. And note we haven't heard HIS side of the story on this, not that it would have ever mattered...)
OK, here we go again...
Granted, I can't blame it all on Obama. Things went downhill before he ever took office.
So, who's to blame? Well, things were going pretty well for last six years of Clinton and the first six of GWBush. In Jan 2007, the unemployment rate was at 4.6%, the deficit averaged about $400 billion and gas was under $2.20/gallon.
Then, in late Jan 2007, the Democrats took control of Congress. Again, this is after the last six years of Clinton and the first six years of Bush. This Republican controlled Congress led over two presidents of both parties, so you can't blame or credit either president. Just two years after the Democrats took control of Congress the deficit had gone up to over $1400 billion and the unemployment rate was about 7.6%. One year after Obama was elected, with both houses of Congress controlled by Obama's party, the unemployment rate was over 9.6% and the deficit was the second highest ever at $1200 billion, second only to Obama's first year in office.
So the credit/blame does not necessarily fall under Obama or Bush, but with Congress. Obama does deserve some credit, however, as he was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not.
So your idea that Republicans are somehow to blame for this is not backed up by the FACTS. Sorry, bub! Numbers don't lie!
If you have a problem with any of the numbers I brought up, speak up. Calling names does not qualify as an argument.
There is no "I disagree" mod for a reason. Flamebait, Troll, and Overrated are not substitutes.
Lets not even get to if it was a depiction of that Muhammad guy. Oh, wait...
You LIE!
It's perfectly OK to be disrespectful to a sitting Democratic president, but god save your soul if you dare to suggest anything negative about a past Republican president.
Well, things were going pretty well for last six years of Clinton and the first six of GWBush.
Absolutely true, as long as you ignore the deficit going from effectively zero at the end of Clinton to very rapid growth during Bush, and guaranteed to get worse as his phased tax cuts continued. And as long as you pretend that the mortgage problems magically started in 2007 and were not a simmering but ignored issue for a decade. And if you ignore that real income for the lower 2/3rds of people was flat or decreased during that time, And if you ignore lots of other warning signs that "things are breaking and will be easy to fix now, but really hard later." Now it's later.
Pretending that things were good for Bush's first six years is a wonderful way of blaming the other guys, but does require lots of selective editing. Not that the other guys did all that well, but lots of indicators went into the red during 2001-2006.
And yet, his comment said nothing about liking Obama; why bring it up?
-SaNo
This was discovered because the directors mentioned it in the commentary?
my mind is boggling somewhat at the silliness of mentioning this AT ALL.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
Yeah, land of the free, free expression and all that, but use a plastic head shapped like the worst president in history and everybody is offended and running around in circle crying for their mother. GROW UP!
Non-Linux Penguins ?
That was a big part of it, sure, as well as the infighting between the republican congress and democratic president. And a large part of the current deficits are due to income tax losses from massive unemployment, but I figure that if people are going to blame Obama for the deficit now, then we have to thank Clinton for the deficit in 2000. Or we can realize that the deficits under both presidents were greatly affected by external factors.
The deficit under GWBush, on the other hand, should have decreased in 2003-2006 as the economy heated up with the real estate bubble. Since it increased, he gets to own some of that.
To get back on topic: it looks like the Game of Thrones set designers tried to make the head not obviously Bush's. Since nobody noticed until the commentary track came out, I've gotta go with "people are whiners". If people took half the time they spent being offended by little stuff and spent it cleaning up the litter in their neighborhood (yes, even if you weren't the one to litter; see "whiner") then the world would be a bit better tomorrow than it was yesterday. And that's a goal I think we all want.
I'm happy a black man won.
Just would have preferred it be Dr. Walter E. Williams - someone who actually understands economics, and that running-up a 20 trillion dollar debt is not the solution.
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I see what you mean. My comment got modded down and I don't even know why. I guess it's not even safe to mention him.
I love Dr. Williams' column. He uses logic like a razor sharp knife. I can't see anyone like him being President though. Logic is very unpopular.