behold, the power of the heckle
at the very beginning, i ranted a bit about the hecklebot and it’s potential as a weapon of mass accoutability (yeah, that’s a sweet phrase).
well, before there was a hecklebot, there was just a regular heckle, and quite honestly, the hecklebot (and it’s distributed model) isn’t quite ready for primetime. there’s a lot of work to do on the hecklebot, and i think you should all be doing some of it. in the meantime, there’s the power of the heckle. whether it’s true or not, with or without spin, i think we have just seen the power of the good old-fashioned heckle checking the “most powerful man on earth.”
in october, president bush went to visit our dear allies and old friends down in australia, only to find himself, accidentally, in a free speech zone. bush thought he was just going to address parliament, but he wound up in a place where some people speak up. shock and horror! the president delivers probably his best off-the-cuff comment in a public speaking engagement ever – while the outrageous hecklers are escorted from the room. whew. close call.
well, today, bush will be arriving in london, on invitation of the queen, for an official, serious, bigtime tour of america’s greatest and most adamant ally in the new war in iraq. bush has decided not to address that parliament.
my read is that a little heckle downunder was enough for bush, and he’s just not going to risk another. i don’t think bush gets british humor, and anyone who’s seen the prime ministers question period in british parliament knows that bush is way out of his league in this environment.
blair came to america back in july and spoke before a joint session of congress, and great britain has been very supportive, to the point of sending several of her native sons to their deaths in iraq. bush should be bending over backwards to make prime minister blair’s life easy at this point, so, of course, it’s unfortunate that this visit will likely do more harm than good.
but at least there won’t be any heckling….