Media Didn't Care About Protest Signs Threatening Bush

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Media Didn't Care About Protest Signs Threatening Bush

By Noel Sheppard (Bio | Archive)
Thu, 08/20/2009 - 10:15 ET

In recent weeks, the media have focused a lot of attention on anti-Obama signs showing up at town hall meetings and Tea Parties from coast to coast.

Without a doubt, some of them cross the line of decency.

However, the press's outrage is quite different than what happened when protesters carried offensive signs threatening former President George W. Bush.

To refresh the memory of the conveniently amnesiac news media, Zombietime dug up a number of posters from demonstrations past which didn't garner the press's ire like those harped on in recent weeks (readers are warned to proceed with caution, h/t Walt Gilbert):

Story Continues Below Ad ↓

A protester with a sign saying “Kill Bush” and advocating that the White House be bombed, at the March 18, 2007 anti-war rally in San Francisco.
(Source: zombietime.)

“Save Mother Earth, Kill Bush” says this sign from a November 20, 2003 protest.
(Source: Innovative Minds.)

“Bush is the disease, Death is the cure,” says this protester at an anti-war rally in San Francisco.
(Source: People’s Cube.)

“I’m here to kill Bush (shoot me)” reads this protest sign (location unknown).
(Source: I found this image several years ago in an online report about an anti-war protest, but I unfortunately failed to note down where or when the protest happened, and the Web site that originally hosted the report is now defunct.)

Remember the guy in our first picture? Here he is again, with another explicit death threat against the president, this time calling for “Death to…Bush” at the October 27, 2007 anti-war rally in San Francisco.
(Source: zombietime.)

Bush being beheaded by a guillotine, at an Obama campaign rally, Denver, October 26, 2008.
(Source: Looking at the Left.)

An effigy of Bush being killed, at the April 10, 2004 anti-war rally in San Francisco.
(Source: zombietime.)

Bush being burned in effigy, at a November 3, 2004 post-election anti-Bush rally in San Francisco.
(Source: zombietime.)

Bush being lynched by an American flag at a rally in New York on September 19, 2006.
(Source: Fred Askew Photography.)

That is just a sampling. Readers and media members are urged to view more of Zombietime's pictures to remember what was considered an acceptable demonstration of free speech less than eight months ago.

Press members are highly encouraged to ask themselves, "What's changed, and why?"

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters. Follow him at Facebook and Twitter.

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Well, then it was "free

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 10:31 ET by motherbelt

Well, then it was "free speech." Now it's "hate speech."

And racist, too!

Right, motherbelt. And I

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 10:34 ET by QueenMum

Right, motherbelt. And I don't recall George Bush ever responding in a negative way towards these protests. Frankly, I don't know how he managed to maintain his composure for eight years.

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."

—Margaret Thatcher

How did he do it? He did

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:11 ET by motherbelt

How did he do it?

He did it because, in spite of the media's incessant attempts to paint him as an ignoran rube, the man had class, and character.

And ... understood his role

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:19 ET by QueenMum

And ... understood his role under the Constitution.

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."

—Margaret Thatcher

And W could depend upon the

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 13:18 ET by Franksam

And... W could depend upon the incredible dedication of the Secret Service guys around him, as can the current First Dude. I love to pick those SS guys out in a crowd, no matter who's in office. They are cool, and ready to take a bullet. Braver than me, I'll admit,

Good work, Noel. The

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 10:32 ET by QueenMum

Good work, Noel.

The response from the left? Photoshop.

BTW, how 'bout we adopt Bill Murray's golf hat as the official headwear of "Astro-turf" conservatism?

Note to management: This link was not intended to endorse the linked vendor. I just don't know how to embed photos.

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out
of other people's money."

—Margaret Thatcher

~It's not you

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 10:39 ET by choselife4x

NB doesn't allow embedded photos. *sigh*

Dissent: It's not just for liberals anymore.-kudzupolitics, USA Today

You'd have a hard time

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 13:11 ET by balboa

You'd have a hard time arguing Pshop on any of those photos. I could give what I _think_ might be a rational given by the MSM, but...eh.

How soon they forget…

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 10:46 ET by ninerdog

How soon they forget… Liberals have no clue how the real world sees them. Remember it the intent not the out come that counts with these mental midgets. Right now the intent is to make the rest of us subservient to them.

...

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 13:31 ET by Eugenia

They didn't forget anything. They're just being hypocritical and they proudly know it and can get away with it because no one in the mainstream media will call them out on it because they all wanted Bush dead too.

"When people stop believing in God, they don't believe in nothing -- they believe in anything."
-- GK Chesterton

The war on "man made disasters" can also be tied in to this

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:17 ET by Prester John

The US just suffered it's bloodiest month in Afghanistan, and other than a short blurb here and there on the MSM the "anti-war" folks (which of course we're really only anti-Bush since they couldn't give a rats a** about our military and in fact despise the military) have been completely silent.

Has anyone seen or heard the term "grim milestone" used in the MSM since 1/20/2009?

Didn't think so.

"The Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies"

www.campaignforliberty.com

If they were honest, their

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:20 ET by HockeyKid

If they were honest, their t-shirts would now read,

"Screw the war.

Screw the troops.

We got rid of Bush."

"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me

The rabid left is planning

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:25 ET by DontFeedTheTrolls

The rabid left is planning anti war monger Obama protests at the Obama vacation spot, but I'm sure the media will not cover it. Perhaps Fox News will.

Write Congress and Senate and tell them what YOU think!

Keep the ILLEGALS out, join NumbersUSA to send free faxes to your reps.

A Thought

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:24 ET by Utherpend

I have never been lucky enough to come across an anti war rally or an anti America rally, living in the heartland tends to keep those small. Wonder what the reaction would be to a group of well organized men going into the middle of the rally and seizing all the desecrated flags on display. Would the liberals resist or simply scream and call for the cops to protect them from the mean conservatives?

I am sure the tattooed dude in both the pics above would start a fight he has that look.

"For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security."

even more than that

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:24 ET by candance

The MSM tried their darndest to convince us that anti-Bush protestors were just a bunch of white collar adults who reluctantly did it out of moral obligation. Check out this gushing report from Chicago Tribune in 2004:

Organizers were ecstatic with the turnout, which included college students, professionals, parents with their kids in strollers, mohawked punk rockers, grandmas, families of Sept. 11 victims and war veterans from across the United States.

The very same newspaper, five years later:

This blueprint is well-known not only to the academics who've studied social protest though the ages, but also to those on the right and the left who orchestrate demonstrations and use comparatively small groups to agitate for big ideas.

Incidentally, Cindy Sheehan is harrassing Obama right now, but this "grieving mother" has mysteriously become an "annoying radical" almost overnight.

You could set your watch by the predictability of the left.

What?!! Hang the president

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:26 ET by HockeyKid

What?!! Hang the president in effigy?! Why, that would be, just so like, inSENSitive, man! Haven't you ever heard of slavery?! I do NOT know what is WRONG with you people. Racist a**holes. You know, you wouldn't be so violent if you stopped eating red meat.

/sarc

Question: How can you tell it's a homemade liberal protest sign?

Answer: The "intelligentsia" always have at least one error in spelling or grammar.

"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me

This type of sign

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 11:50 ET by Delsa

doesn't further the MSM cause.

Simple

Let the hysterical troll-spin begin.

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 12:56 ET by BO STINKS

Can't wait to hear the excuses and hypocrisy from our juvenile delinquents. So-o-o-o predictable.

"...it must be known that we are at all times ready for war." G. Washington

Oh boy! Us conserservatives

Thu, 08/20/2009 - 13:54 ET by Jack Bauer

Oh boy! Us conserservatives are going to get it in the neck over this just released movie...

DEATH OF A PRESIDENT

The incendiary plot outline imagines: "Years after the assassination of President Barack Obama in Chicago, an investigative documentary examines that as-yet-unsolved crime."

Made by a controversial extreme right-wing Director (in Hollywood? Who knew!), the movie has already garnered five swastikah reviews from extremist websites hoping to start a race war. Or at least, make some folks very miffed and irked.

MONTANA-NAZI-MILITIA.COM
"Death of a President," the documentary-style speculative fiction about the assassination of the 44th President of the United States, is seamless, intelligent and maybe even necessary to an understanding of Barack Obama's role in the world today, and his place in the wider scope of history. Especially when public awareness of the facts about his administration lags so far behind what has already been documented.

Then there's this coded review:

WHITEPOWER.COM
Good ol' boy and KKK Grand Kleagals, Gabriel Range's "Death of a President," a potato so hot the Toronto Film Festival's schedule referred to the movie only by its initials until a week before its premiere, has been so well and thoroughly flamed since June that it lands in theaters this week obscured in smoke. Somewhere within this smoldering heap of controversy is a technically inventive, thoughtful, but otherwise not particularly earth-shattering movie that imagines what would happen if the president of the United States were assassinated — a hypothetical event it presents as calamitous.

Far from an endorsement of violence, "Death of a President," which was the winner of the International Critics Prize at Toronto, is a fairly simplistic, definitely tendentious but levelheaded call for reason on all sides. It warns of the pernicious effects of rush to judgment and thoughtless reaction, especially during times of high anxiety. All of this is well and good, except that the insertion of real events and real people into a hypothetical scenario puts the burden of believability on the hypotheses — which are truthy but speculative.

Oh sorry, is my white face red, that's not Montana-Nazi-Militia it's Rogert Ebert, and that's not whitepower.com, it's the LA Times.

Note the lack of outrage though!