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   From: FOXdrunks@Bushy.net   
      
   Bush Jokes as Protesters Burn His Effigy in Montreal   
   MONTREAL - As George W. Bush cracked jokes with a business crowd inside a   
   hotel ballroom Thursday, hundreds of people outside the building cheered   
   while he was being burned in effigy.   
      
      
   Police in riot gear and others on horseback held back a crowd of hundreds,   
   including many people who tossed shoes at Montreal's historic Queen   
   Elizabeth Hotel in a demonstration of disdain for the man speaking inside.   
      
   Two protesters who tried forcing their way through the line of shield- and   
   baton-carrying police were wrestled to the ground and arrested.   
      
   Montreal police said several officers were hit by flying objects, but none   
   were injured. Five people were arrested for mischief and disturbing the   
   peace.   
      
   Ironically, this demonstration took place outside the same hotel where John   
   Lennon's antiwar anthem "Give Peace a Chance" was recorded in 1969.   
      
   Chants of "George Bush terrorist" echoed in the street as some of the 300   
   protesters lashed out at the Board of Trade of Metropolitan Montreal for   
   rolling out the red carpet for him.   
      
   Many protesters said he should be arrested and charged with war crimes.   
      
   Inside the hotel, nearly 1,000 spectators paid as much as $400 to hear Bush   
   speak during the latest stop on his Canadian tour.   
      
   He got a standing ovation when he first took the podium to address the eager   
   audience.   
      
   "I believe in free speech -- except not today," he quipped, drawing laughs   
   and a huge applause.   
      
   Many in the highly supportive crowd guffawed at most of Bush's jokes. The   
   first 10 minutes of his 37-minute speech could have been mistaken for a   
   standup routine.   
      
   In his first visit to Montreal, the former U.S. president warmed up his   
   audience by referring to local hockey legends Maurice and Henri Richard.   
      
   "I was an avid sports fan (growing up) and I actually knew who the Rocket   
   and the Pocket Rocket were," Bush recalled of his childhood days in the   
   "deserts of west Texas."   
      
   Other cracks were more of the self-deprecating kind.   
      
   "Look, I hope you can understand me -- I can't understand you," Bush joked   
   through his thick Texas accent.   
      
   "As you might remember, during my presidency some of my critics made it   
   clear that English was not my long suit."   
      
   He praised the close trade relationship between the U.S. and Canada and   
   thanked Canadian soldiers for their efforts in Afghanistan.   
      
   But Bush spent most of his time on stage defending his heavily criticized   
   White House legacy, including how he handled the financial crisis, Iraq and   
   the aftermath of 9-11.   
      
   He also brushed off his record-low public approval ratings at the end of his   
   tumultuous presidency.   
      
   "If you chase popularity in life, you're often times going to be wrong," he   
   said.   
      
   "The only thing that really matters is that when you look in the mirror   
   you'll be proud of what you see."   
      
   Outside in the street, activists couldn't imagine why Bush, who spoke in   
   Edmonton and Saskatoon earlier this week, had been invited to the Canadian   
   cities.   
      
   "He has nothing to offer," said Helen Hannah, a colourfully dressed member   
   of the Raging Grannies.   
      
   "He stands for modes of torture, modes of warfare and modes of lying that   
   don't represent the way most Americans and most Canadians want to face the   
   world -- we don't believe in those things."   
      
   Andre Gravel said Bush was a bad president who was incompetent on many   
   levels, including his handling of the environment, the wars in the Middle   
   East and the economy.   
      
   The conflicts Bush waged in Afghanistan and Iraq have destabilized world   
   peace, he added.   
      
   "I am in favour of (his) right to speak," Gravel said.   
      
   "But we have the right to protest against him.   
      
   "Everything he did was negative."   
      
   Demonstrators blew horns and lobbed footwear at the front entrance of the   
   hotel -- a symbolic act to pay homage to the Iraqi journalist who was jailed   
   for throwing his shoes at Bush.   
      
   They also torched a life-sized dummy of the former president.   
      
   Following Bush's speech, the former president fielded questions from event   
   moderator John Parisella, the former chief of staff to the late Quebec   
   premier Robert Bourassa.   
      
   Parisella asked Bush about his more controversial decisions as president,   
   including the American-led invasion of Iraq.   
      
   Bush stood up for the action he took in Iraq, even though the country's   
   former president, Saddam Hussein, never had weapons of mass destruction.   
      
   "Had he been in power today, he'd have them," he replied in a defensive   
   tone.   
      
   Bush contends he made calls from the Oval Office as best he could with the   
   information he had at the time -- and he has few regrets about them.   
      
   "I'm not a hand-wringer, John -- I'm not one of these guys that go: 'Oh man,   
   woe is me,' " he said.   
      
   This year marks the 40th anniversary of Lennon's recording of "Give Peace a   
   Chance" with wife Yoko Ono during their bed-in for peace at the Queen   
   Elizabeth.   
      
   "It's a really sad and tragic irony," said protester Jaggi Singh.   
      
   "All we are saying is not just 'give peace a chance' ... we're saying peace   
   comes with justice, peace comes with dignity, peace comes when people   
   struggle for peace and for justice and for dignity."   
      
   © 2009 CTV News   
      
   Bush continues his psychotic babble and commenters continue to use his   
   ignorance as a way to define their intelligence, believing that one final   
   truculent retort will place them in the hall of fame of enlightened posters.   
   Does anyone really need to be convinced of Bush's idiocy, or are you hoping   
   that he and his like will stumble on to your disdain and beg for   
   forgiveness. Support groups are good when they support truth, but become   
   obstacles when the group blindly pats each other on the back as they expose   
   their addiction to rewriting history.   
      
   What does it say about the USA (and Yale) that we could "elect" a FILTERED,   
   low-functioning psychopath as a two-term president whose psychopathic   
   behavior is reinforcced by Corporatists who believe they are "entitled" to   
   out Treasury?   
      
   I wouldn't cross the street to see W. Unless, it were to kick him in the   
   balls.   
      
   ~~~ RIP BUSH ~~~   
      
   Beneath this stone,   
   So stiff and dead,   
   Lies the last damn Bush   
   Who pooped on my head.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)