Spaz59
05-14-03, 04:21 PM
London Mayor Ken Livingstone has launched an astonishing attack on US President George W Bush, calling him "corrupt".
Mr Livingstone made his attack during an address to schoolchildren in a debate on the Iraq war.
He said he would get as much pleasure from Mr Bush being forced out of office as he had done from the downfall of former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein.
The outburst was immediately criticised by London politicians who fear a negative effect on the mayor's efforts to attract American tourists here.
Mr Livingstone was answering questions on the Iraq war and other subjects during a two-hour meeting with 200 schoolchildren at City Hall on Thursday morning.
'Red mist'
After making a pointed reference to Mr Bush, he was asked by Channel 4 broadcaster Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who was chairing the meeting, to explain his making a personal attack on the US president when he disliked answering personal questions himself.
The mayor said: "I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties.
"He is not the legitimate president."
He later added: "This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown."
Conservative mayoral candidate Steve Norris described Mr Livingstone's attack on President Bush as "utterly irresponsible".
"The red mist comes down and his judgement flies out of the window. He has no right whatever to insult President Bush," he said.
"He has every right to his own view but not to express it when he is mayor of this city."
But Mr Livingstone later played down notions his comments could have an effect on tourism.
The mayor said it was as ridiculous as thinking British tourists would be put off some holiday destinations because of the opinions held of Tony Blair by local politicians.
Asked about Mr Livingstone's comments, White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, said: "First of all, I've never heard of the fellow. Second, I'm not going to dignify it with a response."
And in a statement, officials from the US embassy in London, said: "Mayor Livingstone's opinions about the United States are a matter of complete indifference to the American embassy, the American government and the American people."
TONY PARSONs
PREDICTABLY, Ken Livingstone's remarks about the President of America have caused widespread outrage in the United States.
Ken called George Bush, "a repellent coward with a corrupt administration" (a bit rich coming from a repulsive dullard with an inept administration) and the Yanks are up in arms.
American tourist groups are cancelling their trips, American corporations are withdrawing investment from the UK and the British ambassador to Washington has been summoned, his pale knees knocking with terror, to a furious White House.
Actually, none of this is true. On the American radar, Livingstone registers slightly less than a speck of dirt on an amoeba's bum.
Americans have barely heard of Robbie Williams. They have never heard of David Beckham. They have forgotten all about George Michael.
So, in American terms, Ken Livingstone is a colossus of insignificance. I doubt if one retired American couple from Akron, Ohio, will be put off their trip to the birthplace of Shakespeare by Inconsequential Ken's remarks.
The Mayor of London received a lot of stick for putting at risk jobs that depend on tourism. But that assumes America is listening to him. And of course they are not.
America doesn't care what some shagged-out old socialist says about them. But should we?
Livingstone calls Bush a coward for not fighting in Vietnam. But I don't remember Red Ken strapping on his revolutionary beret to help Nicaragua's Sandinistas in their hour of need.
And why wasn't Green Ken standing on the barricades in Ulster when the Nationalist population were suffering under the jackboot of the British invaders?
There have been plenty of causes that Committed Ken cared about with bug-eyed passion. But he preferred to stay at home, stroking his newt.
If some stupendously obscure American politician called Tony Blair a Bible-bashing, mealy-mouthed, narcissistic mother, we wouldn't be outraged. We would be amused at his presumption that anyone cared what he thought. So it is with Ken Livingstone.
When you are a speck of dirt on an amoeba's behind, there is very little danger of you putting our tourist industry at risk. The issue is not really Ken Livingstone's knee-jerk anti-Americanism. It is the knee-jerk anti-Americanism of this entire country.
Only this week I received a letter from some intellectual giant telling me that Americans are arrogant, child-murdering, government-overthrowing, gum-chewing bastards. Anti-Americanism has increased in this country since the war with Iraq. Not because the peace camp were right about the number of civilian casualties. But because they were wrong. All the peacenik predictions - Iraq would be another Vietnam, the Middle East would erupt in flames, the civilian casualties would be beyond number - were totally wrong.
I know all about the CIA involvement in Pinochet's Chile. I have seen the pictures of children suffering from the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam.
I have even been to the museum they have in Hiroshima, Japan, where there are photographs that you will never see in any Western newspaper.
I know America has blood on its hands. Which world power doesn't? Which empire doesn't? The British? The Russian? The Roman?
The more hysterical the anti-Americanism of Europeans becomes, the more I feel like John Wayne. America, for all its faults, is the world's best bet for freedom, democracy and peace.
At a time in history when religious fanatics think mass murder is rewarded in paradise with a life rather like Hugh Hefner's in the Playboy mansion, the world needs America like never before. Not all superpowers are evil. The British Empire was probably the most benevolent in history. We may have nicked a few old urns, but we left behind literacy, hospitals and the rule of law. That's not a bad deal.
If you can think of one country in Africa or Asia that was better off after the British Empire left, then answers on a postcard, please.
The United States of the 21st century is history's other benign superpower. The straws that the left clutch at - Pinochet, Vietnam - are increasingly receding into ancient history.
If Ken Livingstone, and all the little Yank-hating Livingstones just like him, truly believe George Bush and Saddam Hussein are indistinguishable, then they should try explaining that to the parents of the Iraqi children who were hung from lampposts because their dads shared a joke with British troops.
It is amazing to me that, in a world where religious nutters dream of slaughtering your family and mine, people waste their hatred on a country that, at best, exports freedom and democracy and, at worst, McDonald's and Starbucks.
George Bush may well be a cowboy. But increasingly I find myself asking what's so bad about cowboys?
Response
www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/tonyparsons/ (http://www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/tonyparsons/)
First Article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3011999.stm
Mr Livingstone made his attack during an address to schoolchildren in a debate on the Iraq war.
He said he would get as much pleasure from Mr Bush being forced out of office as he had done from the downfall of former Iraq leader Saddam Hussein.
The outburst was immediately criticised by London politicians who fear a negative effect on the mayor's efforts to attract American tourists here.
Mr Livingstone was answering questions on the Iraq war and other subjects during a two-hour meeting with 200 schoolchildren at City Hall on Thursday morning.
'Red mist'
After making a pointed reference to Mr Bush, he was asked by Channel 4 broadcaster Krishnan Guru-Murthy, who was chairing the meeting, to explain his making a personal attack on the US president when he disliked answering personal questions himself.
The mayor said: "I think George Bush is the most corrupt American president since Harding in the Twenties.
"He is not the legitimate president."
He later added: "This really is a completely unsupportable government and I look forward to it being overthrown as much as I looked forward to Saddam Hussein being overthrown."
Conservative mayoral candidate Steve Norris described Mr Livingstone's attack on President Bush as "utterly irresponsible".
"The red mist comes down and his judgement flies out of the window. He has no right whatever to insult President Bush," he said.
"He has every right to his own view but not to express it when he is mayor of this city."
But Mr Livingstone later played down notions his comments could have an effect on tourism.
The mayor said it was as ridiculous as thinking British tourists would be put off some holiday destinations because of the opinions held of Tony Blair by local politicians.
Asked about Mr Livingstone's comments, White House Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, said: "First of all, I've never heard of the fellow. Second, I'm not going to dignify it with a response."
And in a statement, officials from the US embassy in London, said: "Mayor Livingstone's opinions about the United States are a matter of complete indifference to the American embassy, the American government and the American people."
TONY PARSONs
PREDICTABLY, Ken Livingstone's remarks about the President of America have caused widespread outrage in the United States.
Ken called George Bush, "a repellent coward with a corrupt administration" (a bit rich coming from a repulsive dullard with an inept administration) and the Yanks are up in arms.
American tourist groups are cancelling their trips, American corporations are withdrawing investment from the UK and the British ambassador to Washington has been summoned, his pale knees knocking with terror, to a furious White House.
Actually, none of this is true. On the American radar, Livingstone registers slightly less than a speck of dirt on an amoeba's bum.
Americans have barely heard of Robbie Williams. They have never heard of David Beckham. They have forgotten all about George Michael.
So, in American terms, Ken Livingstone is a colossus of insignificance. I doubt if one retired American couple from Akron, Ohio, will be put off their trip to the birthplace of Shakespeare by Inconsequential Ken's remarks.
The Mayor of London received a lot of stick for putting at risk jobs that depend on tourism. But that assumes America is listening to him. And of course they are not.
America doesn't care what some shagged-out old socialist says about them. But should we?
Livingstone calls Bush a coward for not fighting in Vietnam. But I don't remember Red Ken strapping on his revolutionary beret to help Nicaragua's Sandinistas in their hour of need.
And why wasn't Green Ken standing on the barricades in Ulster when the Nationalist population were suffering under the jackboot of the British invaders?
There have been plenty of causes that Committed Ken cared about with bug-eyed passion. But he preferred to stay at home, stroking his newt.
If some stupendously obscure American politician called Tony Blair a Bible-bashing, mealy-mouthed, narcissistic mother, we wouldn't be outraged. We would be amused at his presumption that anyone cared what he thought. So it is with Ken Livingstone.
When you are a speck of dirt on an amoeba's behind, there is very little danger of you putting our tourist industry at risk. The issue is not really Ken Livingstone's knee-jerk anti-Americanism. It is the knee-jerk anti-Americanism of this entire country.
Only this week I received a letter from some intellectual giant telling me that Americans are arrogant, child-murdering, government-overthrowing, gum-chewing bastards. Anti-Americanism has increased in this country since the war with Iraq. Not because the peace camp were right about the number of civilian casualties. But because they were wrong. All the peacenik predictions - Iraq would be another Vietnam, the Middle East would erupt in flames, the civilian casualties would be beyond number - were totally wrong.
I know all about the CIA involvement in Pinochet's Chile. I have seen the pictures of children suffering from the effects of Agent Orange in Vietnam.
I have even been to the museum they have in Hiroshima, Japan, where there are photographs that you will never see in any Western newspaper.
I know America has blood on its hands. Which world power doesn't? Which empire doesn't? The British? The Russian? The Roman?
The more hysterical the anti-Americanism of Europeans becomes, the more I feel like John Wayne. America, for all its faults, is the world's best bet for freedom, democracy and peace.
At a time in history when religious fanatics think mass murder is rewarded in paradise with a life rather like Hugh Hefner's in the Playboy mansion, the world needs America like never before. Not all superpowers are evil. The British Empire was probably the most benevolent in history. We may have nicked a few old urns, but we left behind literacy, hospitals and the rule of law. That's not a bad deal.
If you can think of one country in Africa or Asia that was better off after the British Empire left, then answers on a postcard, please.
The United States of the 21st century is history's other benign superpower. The straws that the left clutch at - Pinochet, Vietnam - are increasingly receding into ancient history.
If Ken Livingstone, and all the little Yank-hating Livingstones just like him, truly believe George Bush and Saddam Hussein are indistinguishable, then they should try explaining that to the parents of the Iraqi children who were hung from lampposts because their dads shared a joke with British troops.
It is amazing to me that, in a world where religious nutters dream of slaughtering your family and mine, people waste their hatred on a country that, at best, exports freedom and democracy and, at worst, McDonald's and Starbucks.
George Bush may well be a cowboy. But increasingly I find myself asking what's so bad about cowboys?
Response
www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/tonyparsons/ (http://www.mirror.co.uk/columnists/tonyparsons/)
First Article
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/3011999.stm