Humor and the Reality Disconnect

Sometimes the world is just too, too crazy. A Bush photo-op during his recent visit to Saudi Arabia has the blogosphere abuzz—at least this video portion does.

Here’s the original video, showing Bush swaying to the music of a cultural dance, sword in tow, locked arm in arm with a Saudi prince.

Here’s a You-tuber’s spoof, substituting a song that suggests a different take on the matter.

Now, now, let’s not be disrepectfull, shall we? ha ha. Humor has not, as far as I know, been banned. Yet.

Speaking of humor, in a 1999 interview with Tucker Carlson, Bush mocked Karla Tucker, then death row inmate later executed in Texas (he pursed his lips and mimicked, “Please ... don’t kill me”), and at a 2004 press corps dinner, peeking under his desk pretending to look for weapons of mass destruction, he laughed when he couldn’t find any—in both cases, apparently finding the subject of death a matter of great amusement. (The audience laughed, to0, at the "no WMDs." What does that say about us?)

Poking fun at the Bumbler-in-Chief doing his little sword dance on his trip abroad is one thing. Joking about someone dying, or massive numbers of someones dying, is quite another.

Bob Cesca, in an article today, titled "President Bush Shouldn't Play with Sharp Objects", noted Bush’s record for having the most executions on his watch as governor of Texas—152 in one and a half terms—and that the House of Saud last year conducted 136 public beheadings in the so-called "Chop Squares". The article includes a link to a video interview with a Saudi executioner, sitting on a couch with his three young children, talking about his job of beheading people.

The little sword dance, the constant smirking, the hypocrisy; the thousands of deaths--on all sides--of this insane war; an executioner calmly detailing accounts of beheading in front of small children-- THAT is what I mean by Reality Disconnect.

I sometimes feel like we're living in a nightmare, orchestrated by comedians; the universe shakes its head in disbelief at the absurdity of it all.

Wake me when it's over.