Curses!

The Rocky Mountain Collegian, a free, student-produced newspaper at Colorado State University, published a two-word editorial on Friday, stating: “FUCK BUSH.” In the ensuing uproar, the newspaper has already lost $30,000 in advertising, prompting 10 percent employee pay cuts across the board. \nHow DARE they? How dare they deliberately attack “The Commander Guy” during a time of war with such crude profanity? As we know, only the president and his cronies are allowed to swear in public:\n“There’s Adam Clymer, major league asshole from the New \nYork Times.”\n“Big time!” – then-Gov. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, Sept. 4, 2000, Naperville, Ill.\n“Fuck yourself.” – Dick Cheney to Sen. Patrick Leahy, June 22, 2005, Washington, D.C.\n“Get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit.” – President Bush, to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, G8 Conference, July 17, 2006, St. Petersburg, Russia.\n“We’re kicking ass.” – Bush, responding to an inquiry into our success in Iraq, Sept. 5, Sydney, Australia.\n“Fuck.” – Said multiple times by Bush in a Talk Magazine interview with Tucker Carlson. Bush’s campaign staff then demanded that everything be stricken from the record.\nLook, I don’t doubt that the Rocky Mountain Collegian made a poor decision by publishing its editorial. It should have put at least some discussion of the terms it used and why on the page to explain itself. A two-word headline like that could still have the desired effect of “causing a stir.”\nBut the right-wing noise machine, from Rush Limbaugh to blogs to Fox “News,” has demonstrated the absurdity of the conservative base. They all love Bush for being a down-home guy who loves to cuss, but when others use similar language to disparage “The Leader,” they revolt. \nWhen John Kerry said he hadn’t realized how bad the Bush administration was going to “fuck it up” in Iraq, he got lambasted by Bush. Apologies were demanded! Yet, where was Bush’s apology for Adam Clymer, the “major league asshole?” Nowhere to be found. As concerned parents try to filter profanity out from the television set and the movie screen “for the children,” a tirade of profanity from the President of the United States, arguably the biggest role model in America, brings nary a peep. \nI don’t support the coarsening of our public dialogue, and I agree that profanity in public discourse leads to dangerous overgeneralizations and crassness. But honestly, no side has been particularly polite. Do Americans truly imagine that their leaders speak in dignified, elevated tones, never using a personal attack? Haven’t these people been around during election season?\nEventually, all the fracas over profanity and insults becomes misdirection from what really matters. While the U.S. Senate wasted the time it took to vote on and condemn MoveOn.org’s “Petraeus or Betray Us” ad, Republicans refused to let a bipartisan bill on extending troop leave reach an up-or-down vote. While Bush derides the ad as “disgusting,” he continues to run the most disgusting act of all: the Iraq war. Human lives mean less than a newspaper ad to this man.\nTo paraphrase Dick Cheney: Bush, go fornicate yourself.