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.'"

Comments

you what?

[alphatel]

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush? An apology is one thing, but why the fuck does anyone need to remaster post-release films which contain accidental heads?

Re:you what?

[Volante3192]

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!

Re:you what?

[DaHat]

That worthless douchebag hasn't been heard from since leaving office unlike most former presidents.

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.

Re:you what?

[Lev13than]

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush?

Surprised that they chose to digitally edit his nose and chin. Since this is Game of Thrones I just assumed that they were going to add a pair of tits.

Re:you what?

[Sponge Bath]

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.

Re:you what?

[XxtraLarGe]

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.

Re:you what?

[Comen]

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.

Re:you what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Respecting his successor by suggesting that the only reason Obama is targeting the "Bush tax cuts" is because it has "Bush" in the name? Or were you asleep when he started throwing his retard around again back in April?

Re:you what?

[Volante3192]

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...)

Re:you what?

[durrr]

They had to keep up with the times.
So they made it look like Obama instead.

Re:you what?

[ArcherB]

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.

Re:you what?

[cpu6502]

Same reason Disney edited out the topless lady in the Rescuers and the penis in the Mermaid poster. They don't want to offend anyone (or lose money because of it).

Re:you what?

[amiga3D]

I still remember him laughing when that reporter tossed his shoes at him and he ducked. I laughed my ass off at the look on his face. It didn't really even faze him at all. Later he intervened on the guys behalf to keep him from being punished. I really wanted to like President Bush but his policies just made it too hard and I gave up trying.

Re:you what?

[firewrought]

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.

Quoting numbers without context is a good way to hide assumptions and misrepresent a complex situation. And economies are inherently complex. I think to be a Republican apologist for the 2008-2012 U.S. financial crisis, you have to mitigate a handful of factors:

• A Republican congress repealed Glass-Stegal, paving the way for the bad banking practices evident in the subprime morgtage crisis.
• A Republican administration led the charge to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was very costly.
• A Republican administration instituted large tax cuts during a war.

Of course, probably the easiest way to mitigate these is to point out the unclean hands here... Clinton approved Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Obama extended the Bush-era tax cuts, and the Democratic congress went along with the war effort.

I think the Daily Show called it right once: Republicans are the party of bad ideas; Democrats are the party of no ideas.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

There are so many things wrong in your post I'm not sure I can cover them all in limited time.

Citing the unemployment rate a year in to Obama's term and somehow blaming it on him is one of the more spectacular ones. The economy had just entered free fall when Obama took office. There was absolutely nothing anyone was going to do to stop it in a year, other than squander even larger amounts of borrowed money on stimulus than they did.

"was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not"

Speaking of FACTS you just went off the rails dude. Bush had Republican control of the House for six years, and Senate control for four years. Democrats are pathetic and hopeless in the opposition obstructuing anything. The Republicans are extremely good at it.

Bush gutted every regulatory body in sight, especially the SEC, through executive orders and appointments which contributed more than anything to corporate running amuck. He rammed through huge tax cuts which started the downhill slide in to huge deficits, passed Medicare D which also added to the huge deficits, passed No Child Left Behind which did nothing but damage to the educational system, passed the Patriot act which eviscerated civil liberties, and ran two staggeringly expensive and largely pointless wars whose only lasting accomplishment will be a huge pile of debt and a bunch of traumatized vets.

The only two things Obama managed to pass were Obamacare which was a huge giveaway to the insurance and drug companies & will hopefully overturned tomorrow. And then there was the stimulus package, a mostly stupid squandering of money but considering the economy was in free fall it probably had to be done in some form . Other than the hasn't dont much of anything since he can't get anything past the Republicans in the House. So called "financial reform" and regulation didn't fix anything by the time Wall Street was done lobbying it in to the ground.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the collapse, Clinton, Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Greenspan, Frank and Dodd all deserve some. But you can't change the simple fact the economy spiralled out of control and blew up on Bush's watch, Paulson helped, and they deserve massive amounts of credit.

Re:you what?

[kqs]

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.

Re:you what?

[sanosuke001]

And yet, his comment said nothing about liking Obama; why bring it up?

Re:you what?

[BMOC]

This was discovered because the directors mentioned it in the commentary?

my mind is boggling somewhat at the silliness of mentioning this AT ALL.

Re:you what?

[tmosley]

*the party of the same ideas.

There has been no significant policy difference between Obama and Bush. Also, the financial crisis has nothing to do with the parties that were in office at any given time. It was 100% caused by overspending by BOTH parties, and the Fed's eagerness to accommodate false growth by gaming interest rates. They have pushed this game to it's endpoint. The freefall we are in now will end with nothing short of a sickening crunch. Obamney won't be able to stop it, no mater what mystical powers anyone attributes to it.

Re:you what?

[tmosley]

The deficit going to zero was a result of increasing income tax gains from the internet bubble, something cause by the Fed. Clinton had nothing to do with it. He did manage to refrain from going into max spending mode like most municipalities did during the same time period, to his credit.

Re:you what?

[nedlohs]

You can't blame the 2007 Democrats either. It's been a time bomb, who it blows up on is essentially random. I guess that group might have been worse at kicking the can down the road than the previous groups (though more likely the problem got big enough that kicking stopped working).

You don't have to like the guy and can think he's just austrian nutter, but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfascZSTU4o is from 2006, so before those Democrats took over. Seems unlikely those Democrats just fluked making his predictions turn out true rather than the problem actually already existing.

Re:you what?

[kqs]

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.

Re:you what?

[Dragonslicer]

I haven't seen the HBO show, but assuming that it's relatively close to the books, I would be shocked if anyone that was so easily offended was watching the show. There is a lot of nasty stuff that happens in the story. Having Bush's head on a pike probably wouldn't even be the most offensive part of the episode.

Re:you what?

[Volante3192]

I would be shocked if anyone that was so easily offended was watching the show.
Prepare to be shocked:

Orgs. like the Parents Television Council literally watch these shows to BE offended just so they can complain.

Anyone rational goes, "Hmm, I don't think I'll like the content of this show." *changes channel*
PTC goes, "I KNOW I'm going to be offended by this show, let's take detailed notes and send them to the FCC because that's what Jesus would do!"

Re:you what?

[sycodon]

That's doesn't stop the entire Islamic world from going apeshit when someone draws him.

Re:you what?

[Nyder]

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush? An apology is one thing, but why the fuck does anyone need to remaster post-release films which contain accidental heads?

or vagina.

Re:you what?

[Raenex]

Well, things were going pretty well for last six years of Clinton and the first six of GWBush.

Holy shit, what cave were you living in? In 2000-2001, the dotcom bubble burst, plunging the country into a recession. In 2001, 9/11 happened. The war in Iraq was a muddled and expensive disaster, and we later found out it was on false pretenses. Iraq was probably the predominant reason Bush's approval ratings were so low near the end of his term. Deficit spending was in full bloom (including the giveaway to big pharma for drug spending when Bush was trying to get re-elected in 2004). The deficit spending under Bush, along with lax oversight of the financial industry (both parties are to blame for this), meant when the crash came we were in a big, big hole.

Of course, the Republicans and Romney think we can untax ourselves out of it with tax breaks to the rich. Yeah, that worked for a bit, until it stopped working and left us with an even bigger bill.

It's not that I think Obama has good answers either (yay, more stimulus spending), but trying to pin this on a Democratic Congress is ridiculous.

Re:you what?

[nospam007]

"Personally, while I think it was intentional & tasteless.."

Care to give us a few examples of tasteful heads on a stick?

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

cpu6502 is a troll, That's why.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

Probably not.

And you are correct. It's in the background of a couple of frames, with different hair. Hell, there are thousands of people who look like that.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

The causes of the real estate bubble were fraud on the part of mortgage brokers and fraud by the banks and rating agencies creating supposedly AAA rated mortgage backed securitues that were actually junk bonds. They were both criminal and or civil offenses, that probably could have been prosecuted in the more extreme cases if anyone had cared, and in all cases they could have been reined in by the Fed under its existing regulatory powers, or brought under control by regulation from Congress and the White House.

It is a very standard regulatory mandate for central banks and governments to set standards for mortgages. Letting people who have no income get huge liar loans, using predatory teaser rates to get people in to loans they couldn't afford, and letting rating agencies rate securities as AAA that weren't were all things that the Bush administration could and should have prevented. The government could have also stopped Fannie and Freddie Mac from creating a big chunk of the market for toxic loans and securities since they are government backed entities.

If people want to speculate in the stock market there is almost nothing the government can do about it. The only power it has is for the SEC to make sure the companies are abiding by securities regulations, which can prevent fraud, but can't prevent speculation. The dot com bubble was speculation way more than it was fraud.

Re:you what?

[geekoid]

"There has been no significant policy difference between Obama and Bush"
Clearly you aren't paying attention.
Maybe it'
s the fact the the pubs lie and do what ever they can to stop anything from being passed solesly because they don't like Obama. We are talking about a party they drafted a bill, backed that biklll, then then stopped backing it when Obama said he would sign it.

THAT is what is going on. Obama has tried to get several policy changes through, al of which get stopped simply because Obama likes them.

Can you even begin to grasp that mind set and how damaging it is?

" It was 100% caused by overspending by BOTH parties"
No. It was the War, and massive tax cuts. It's pretty clear.

Most people who talk about government and use the word 'overspending' are either incredibly ignorant, or intentional misleading people. I bet you have no idea about de-leveraging, government v. Consumer debt, or any macro economic concept.

Ignorant twat.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

"half of the debt exists entirely because of the war in afghanistan(which I actually support)"

What is there to support in it? The government the U.S. is propping up is so massively corrupt, incompetent and hated the Taliban is going to topple it five minutes after the U.S. leaves.

And, the U.S. is going to leave in two years.

As soon as the U.S. leaves Afghanistan is going to revert to Taliban control and look exactly like it did in 2001 with one exception. Bin Laden is dead but he probably hasn't even been in Afghanistan for most of the last ten years. There are plenty of other lawless countries Al Qaeda or its successors can use as bases. Its obviously taken us a lot more time, money and blood to deny them one base that it has for them to move to ten new ones in Yemen, Somalia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Phillipines, etc.

If you are going to squander that kind of blood and treasure you need to have a plan to get something out of it that makes it worth it. The U.S. didn't.

Re:you what?

[circletimessquare]

Mussolini

Ceausescu

Gaddafi

Assad (soon)

Re:you what?

[demachina]

You are such a partisan hack there isn't much point in arguing with you anyway.

I'm no fan of Obama or Pelosi, and you will seldom catch be defending them, but your position that nothing is Bush's fault is delusional.

Do you actually believe the stuff you say or do you just regurgitate the crap you hear on Fox News day after day, like a mindless automaton.

About all Pelosi did impacting the economy was to sign off on Bush/Paulson's bailouts. Bush/Paulson no doubt acted on the old axiom, never let a good crisis go to waste used it to transfer billions of tax payer dollars to Wall Street including his former company, Goldman-Sach using AIG as a front. Pelosi just caved to their scare tactics.

What exactly in the 110th Congress did Pelosi do that made it "her" economy. They did a small $160 billion stimulus but that was mostly tax cuts every Republican can love. They increased the minimum wage to $7.25/hr. Is that how she destroyed the global economy?

Re:you what?

[mophab]

Not even close. The guy that threw the shoes at Bush got 3 years. Bush never lifted a finger for him.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-03-12/world/iraq.shoe.thrower_1_zaidi-al-maliki-and-bush-shoes?_s=PM:WORLD

Re:you what?

[ArcherB]

First, I don't get FoxNews. It's a premium channel on Dish Network and we have the basic package. But that is very typical of liberals to attempt to counter arguments they can't refute with "FauxNews" or "Racists!" I know it's a fallacy, but I can't quite tell you which one.

Next, I never said Bush has done no wrong. What I said was that CONGRESS, NOT THE PRESIDENT, CONTROLS THE ECONOMY. The President controls the military, foreign policy, DOJ, etc. The economy is all congress. CONGRESS writes the laws. CONGRESS writes the regulations. CONGRESS writes the tax code. CONGRESS spends the money. CONGRESS CONTROLS THE ECONOMY.

OK, one more time, just to make sure you get the point. If nothing else, take this with you. Are you ready? Here it is:
CONGRESS CONTROLS THE ECONOMY!

Go back and compare economies from 1970 'til today. You will find that when R's control Congress, the GDP tends to increase faster than when the D's control Congress. Reagan is the lone exception, but he had a knack for getting a D controlled Congress to do his bidding. After Reagan was Bush. He had a D Congress and things fell apart, leading to Clinton. Clinton't first two years were a disaster. This led to Republicans taking Congress with Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the House. Within two years, there was a huge turnaround of the economy leading to Democrats getting Clinton re-elected with the slogan, "It's the Economy, Stupid!" because the economy was that good. R's still held Congress. This lasted through the rest of Clinton's term, even ending with a surplus. GHWB took over, and held a barely R Congress until Jan 2007... Well, read my first post to see what happened after that.

So, you can blame the President all you want, but all that shows is your overflowing ignorance of how the US political system works. I'm not cheer leading for Bush or bashing Obama. I'm saying that Congress Controls the Economy. Recent history proves that the economy rises and falls with Congress and the President has little to do with it.

What exactly in the 110th Congress [wikipedia.org] did Pelosi do that made it "her" economy. They did a small $160 billion stimulus but that was mostly tax cuts every Republican can love. They increased the minimum wage to $7.25/hr. Is that how she destroyed the global economy?

Well, figure out what turned a $400 billion deficit into a $1400 billion dollar deficit and that will be your answer.

The only time the president may be held responsible is when the president and Congress are in the same party. That's because Congress will pass the president's agenda as he/she becomes the defacto leader of the party.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

"First, I don't get FoxNews."

Apologies man, when people start ranting about Pelosi and Obama that is just classic Fox News. They do it all day, every day, day after day. You sound just like them.

One reason the GDP goes up under Republicans is they tend to run massive deficits and pour massive amounts of money in to the military. Win win for GDP. Its the way Republican's do stimulus, they just wont admit it is stimulus.

"CONGRESS, NOT THE PRESIDENT, CONTROLS THE ECONOMY"

Dude, you are wrong again. The Executive branch controls the DOD, the DOJ, the SEC and a host of other agencies that directly influence the economy.

Bush's insane push for a war in Iraq, for no reason, did more damage to the economy than anything in the last decade. Congress had nothing to do with it other than rubber stamping it.

When Bush put Christopher Cox in charge of the SEC that was a green light to Wall Street that it could run amuck. The entire Bush agenda was to gut regulation and they did most of it without any involvement from Congress, it was all executive appointments and orders.

I lean libertarian so I'm OK with no regulation but if you are gonna do it you also have to get rid of all the Federal backstops, bailouts and meddling. If the Bush crowd wanted to let Wall Street run amuck that's fine with me, they should have just let them all go down in ruin when they acted irresponsibly. Deregulating everything, letting Wall Street amuck, and then bailing them out at taxpayer expense when it all went bad, wrong on every level.

Bush also nominated Greenspan to his 5th term at the Fed in 2004. If Greenspan had retired in 2004 that would have done more to prevent the crisis than anything, assuming a competent replacement.

"Well, figure out what turned a $400 billion deficit into a $1400 billion dollar deficit and that will be your answer."

The deficits for the last four years are directly attributable to:

A) A crashed economy and high unemployment, which led to crashed tax revenues at all levels of government. Crashed economy leads back to Bush

B) Massive tax cuts. It is stimulatory but it is also hammering revenues. Traces back to Bush though Obama deserves blame for renewing them as is. Taxing the rich at 15% on capital gains while working people get whacked at 20-33% for Federal income tax, plus state taxes, plus 10%+ payroll taxes, plus regressive sales taxes is inequitable.

C) Stimulus spending, and extended unemployment benefits, which is only there because the economy crashed under Bush.

D) Massive military and homeland security spending, mostly traced to Bush and Lieberman

E) Massive health care spending, blame both parties, though Bush and the Republicans rammed through medicare D which was a blank check to the drug companies

F) A tax code that is swiss cheese. Big corporations and the wealthy bitch about U.S. tax rates constantly but the dirty little secret is they seldom pay anything close to those rates. Blame both parties but Republicans especially. They still fight to the death to give huge tax breaks to oil companies that are making massive profits.

Re:you what?

[NorQue]

I've just seen the season one finale last week, I knew about that head and had been actively looking for it, but other than seeing a couple of heads on spears in that particular scene I couldn't make out which one was the Bush head. This was blown way out of proportion, I agree with the GP, if the directors hadn't said anything on the cemmentary nobody would've known.

Collectors edition

[wjousts]

Does this mean the copies already bought off-the-shelf have just become instant collectors editions? Expect to see "Game of Thrones - George Bush's Head Edition" on Ebay for about x5 the list price.

Re:Collectors edition

[plover]

I'd hang on to your copy of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, too. To me, it's always looked like they used a model of George W. Bush for the face of Grawp, Hagrid's giant brother in the woods, then mixed in a little Alfred E. Newman to disguise it.

Trust me, once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Eunuchs

[jimmerz28]

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.

Re:Eunuchs

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's to be expected that HBO would be spineless twits. What surprises me is that, in their capacity as profit maximizing spineless twits, they decided that this recall/re-edit/lament/apologize/etc. tactic is more cost effective than just issuing a generic "Yeah, we are making a blood-drenched swords-n-sorcery series, so we buy prop heads by the fucking truckload without carefully vetting them for non-resemblance to any persons living or dead. Who cares?" and going on with their day.

That is the disturbing bit, to my mind.

Re:Eunuchs

[amiga3D]

I agree. When I watch something like Game of Thrones it's to escape from the real world for a while. The last thing I want is to see shit from today's political goat rope brought into my entertainment. Leave that shit on FOX, CNN and NBC etc. where it belongs.

Re:Eunuchs

[amiga3D]

Damn! It wasn't all that bad. Of course I think what pissed everyone off is that it could have been so much better. All those years of waiting only to be let down made a lot of people bitter.

Re:Eunuchs

[GameboyRMH]

Remember how Lucas shit on the prequels by making it into "Palpatine is George Bush". I can only speak for myself, but I kind of wanted to watch a Star Wars movie, not watch Rachel Maddow interview Sean Penn.

I find it hilarious that you thought this at all.

"Palpatine and George Bush are both older white men! Great, now all I can see is a liberal wankfest, I bet they were planning this from when they made Palpatine an older white man in the original trilogy!"

Re:Eunuchs

[bky1701]

Every science fiction/fantasy I can think of has a major political commentary, usually on current events. Star Trek TOS talked about the Cold War, BSG has far too many to note, hell LOTR is supposedly about WWII, and I am sure it seemed a little like it when it was just out. A barely noticeable head of GWB should be the least of anyone's worry, unless you're unable to see the intentional undertones.

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[SJHillman]

I see nothing saying the former president is even aware of it, much less has a beef about it.

Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment is stupid, selfish, and full of foul stenched bitchism. Putting Obama's head in there is devoid of any rational sense and must be based purely on your personal hatred. Such an act cannot be tolerated in the show.

Everyone knows there are no black people in Westeros. Putting his head in there would ruin the suspension of disbelief. What are you, nuts?

Re:Putting Obama's head in is NOT acceptable!!!!

[ColdWetDog]

I don't. Of course, I also don't waste my life obsessing over poorly-written, over-sexualized drivel.

I didn't think we were talking about Slashdot - just a TV program.

Couldn't see it.

[IorDMUX]

Okay, I watched the clips. I saw the before and after pictures.

And I didn't see the faintest hint of resemblance. Am I the only one?

Re:Couldn't see it.

[XxtraLarGe]

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.

Re:Couldn't see it.

[amicusNYCL]

No one wasted any additional time other than the time it wastes to watch the episode normally. The fact that they used a GWB head was pointed out in the commentary on the DVD, it wasn't something that someone just noticed.

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt he watches much outside of The Cartoon Network...

Re:Oh geez. ADD a head not subtract one.

[CAIMLAS]

I couldn't agree more (with the intention and sentiment). I LOL'd at your proposal, and I think it's a strikingly good one.

The irony is that the last decade of warfare has basically been continuous and at higher cost than Vietnam with much broader collateral damage. Unfortunately, Bush and Obama can not be held singularly responsible for this: US Congress as well as the people involved on the OF side.

The real tragedy is that it's being waged for political reasons, not actual stabilization. See: the jihadist coups of Egypt and Libya thanks to our benevolent administration. Jingoism is bad, but jihadism is probably a bit worse in terms of negative effects (deaths, poverty, enslavement, etc.) on the grander scale of history.

Fan Edit?

[CopaceticOpus]

I'm hoping this leads to a fan edit in which every dead character on screen is replaced by Bush! I say this not because of hatred for Bush, but because HBO and various commentators have taken this amusing situation way too seriously.

Re:TO BAD SO SAD

[CanHasDIY]

I doubt he watches much outside of The Cartoon Network...

If so, he's far more intelligent than I previously gave him credit for...

Four words

[freeze128]

Abraham... Lincoln... Vampire... Slayer!

the black man won...

[publiclurker]

get over it and stop trying to infect everything with your hate.

Re:the black man won...

[C_amiga_fan]

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.

Who *did* they make it look like?

[whitroth]

And why didn't they have a Cheney head beside it?

                mark

Re:Total BSS

[geekoid]

Setting aside I never saw any of that stuff o his website. I didn't go there often.

He had no input into this. none at all.
Why would you think the author of the book would be making set design decisions? why do you think that is more likely then what actually happened? The got a call for a bunch of fake heads, so the grab all they had, slapped some wigs on them, and put them into the set.

The scene they are talking about is a few frames, with the head in the background and turned. You can't even see half of a side of the head.

Seriously, find something real to get offended about.

Re:Total BSS

[artor3]

If I thought you'd done something so bad that your head should be removed and put on a stake, I'd cut your god damn head off an put in on a stake.

No, you wouldn't, because you're an angry little coward spitting venom from behind the safety of a computer screen. Tough talk like that always comes from the cowards.

Bush was a terrible president. He may very well have dealt the death blow to this country. We're still shambling along for now, but the harm he did... in racking up deficits, undermining civil rights, making enemies, deregulating everything, stacking the court with activists... I don't think it's really survivable. It's pretty clear from how offended you are that you voted for him. So did I. The difference is, I'm brave enough to face my mistake. You're a coward who runs from his mistakes and insists that it's everyone else who is wrong.