Bush assassination drama provokes inanities

Just when you thought John Beyer of Mediawatch-UK couldn’t possibly say anything sillier, a lazy hack from The Daily Mirror coaxes from him a quote of even more breathtaking stupidity.

Commenting on the upcoming Channel 4 production, Death of a President, which features a dramatised assassination of George W Bush, the Sage of Ashford declares:

There’s a lot of feeling against President Bush and this may well put ideas into people’s heads.

Because nobody would have thought of doing such a thing otherwise, obviously.

If something happens as a consequence of this film, then blood is on their hands.

You know, he might be right. A late night drama documentary on More4 could just be the provocation that finally does for the most widely-hated US president in history.


15 Responses to “Bush assassination drama provokes inanities”

  1. Andy A says:

    Well, I doubt there’ll be as much wailing and gnashing of teeth – not to mention the knock-on effects, though I forget what they were exactly – of another Death of a back in 1980. Typical of Muslim attitudes to anything that knocks their arcane excuse for a culture, I seem to remember that there were all sorts of diplomatic to-ings and fro-ings, and were there not threats of sanctions? I’m speaking, of course, of Death of a Princess (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_a_Princess). With this, I doubt there’ll be much more than the huffing and puffing from the stick-your-chest-out-in-pride, God-bless-America types, who can get very huffy and indignant when anyone dares to criticise their president (although plenty of Americans have), or, God forbid, kill him off fictionally. Imagine if there were a British film that dealt with the death of Muhammad, or even a fictional killing off of one of their currently revered, Sistani or somebody.

  2. Bloggerheads says:

    Channel 4 inspires terrorists with the revelation that bullets can kill…

    Mirror – Bush Whacked: Fury as Dubya ‘assassinated’ by C4: A hard-hitting British TV drama that shows President Bush assassinated by a terrorist sniper sparked outrage last night… John Beyer of TV watchdog MediaWatch said the drama was irresponsibl…

  3. Shaun Hollingworth says:

    I wonder what the “Massah” would allow us to watch ?

  4. Caoimhin Saile says:

    The “Massah” would have us all in Concentration Camps so I’m sorry to say that Shauns question is well….irrelevant.

  5. Steve says:

    Beyer is correct ALL terrorist acts have been comitted by people who were influenced by docu-dramas shown on TV.

    Case in point the September 11th attacks were a carbon copy of a programme shown on Channel 4 in 1999…oh no thats not right they just worked out that taking over two planes and flying them into a building was cheaper than buying a missile.

    It just shows that Beyer seems to think everyone(apart from his band of idiots) has a suggestable personality, cannot distinguish fact from fiction and needs to be protected from themselves by having some selfappointed gaurdians tell them what they can and cannot watch.

  6. Andy A says:

    I’m sure we all remember seeing an adventure serial at the Saturday matinée (if they still have those) and perhaps aping the hero to some extent (I used to do it with Batman – and I was only 26), but you grow out of it. You certainly don’t watch, say, a Superman movie and then decide to launch yourself off a building. I don’t recall that Beyer objected to The New Adventures of Superman when it was on TV (maybe still is on some channels).

  7. martyn says:

    Ohhhh it’s a drama, I think I’ll wait till they do the documentary 😉

  8. JustTheTruth says:

    I sure hope these fools who make this “drama” go in to detail about the appointment of Dick Cheney as the next U.S. President and how he then gets elected in 2008…

  9. JustTheTruth says:

    Right….as if people would watch a fictional “drama” about an assasination of President Bush and that would somehow trigger some action…

    Next you’re gonna tell me that if I draw a CARTOON depicting the so-called “prophet” Mohammed…that there will be people around the world calling for my death…PUHLEEZE…I wasn’t born yesterday…that only happens on T.V. and in the movies…

  10. martyn says:

    Oh it’s Dick Cheney, not chainey. And there was me thinking it was some bizarre s&m practice that was about to be deemed illegal under the “violent porn” legislation. Ahh well, I expect those into violent porn will have to get their kicks from violent gun camera footage instead, from the news.

  11. Sunny says:

    Haha! Ace… why hasn’t this got his own comedy show?

  12. I liked the US Ambassador to Britain’s quote about this in the Mirror. He said something like “Why not go the whole hog and show atrocities from Darfur?”, in a tone which suggested he thought the worst thing television could ever possibly do would be to document a woefully under-reported humanitarian crisis. What’s next, Channel Four? Some sort of nightly “show” about “politics”? Called “The news”?

    JustTheTruth – are you comparing American citizens to people living under a fundamentalist theocracy? You must be with the terrorists! Why do you hate America? Nothing but blame-America-first! Continue copying out talking points for another half hour! Etc!

  13. Will says:

    I suspect people who are dumb enough to need a drama to give them this idea are also dumb enough to believe it’s real and therefore accept that Bush has been assassinated. So they wouldn’t try to kill him because they’d think he was dead. So this programme makes Bush safer. QED.

  14. Sunny says:

    Doh! I meant why doesn’t this guy (Beyer) have his own comedy show.

  15. Monitor says:

    I knew what you meant, Sunny. 🙂