Bush used as a billboard advertising tool in Australia

[lebkuchen]

(Clear Channel doesn't own ALL the billboards of the world~)

A website clearinghouse for real estate sales in Australia advertises its site in Brisbane with Bush on a billboard. Did Cheney see this during his visit "downunder?"


So easy - anyone can find a new home

The Australian blogger John Quiggin says:

Driving in Brisbane the other day, I noticed an ad for domain.com.au, claiming their website was so easy anyone could use it. This was illustrated by a picture of George W. Bush, looking mystified by a laptop.

It’s striking that the advertisers thought no potential customers (or not enough to matter) would be put off by the assumption that the leader of the free world is a byword for stupidity.* This in turn raises the question of why the Australian government remains so supinely obedient to this lame duck, over Iraq, Kyoto, the Hicks case and so on.

* Strictly speaking, Bush isn’t stupid. He’s shown himself to be quite sharp in the pursuit of his own short term interests and those of his backers. But he’s ignorant, narrow-minded, intellectually lazy and unwilling to learn from experience, a combination that produces reliably stupid policy decisions.

Follow-up commentaries by Aussies at the above blogger's site are worth a read. Below are a handful...

*Bluster and bullshit can keep you going for a long time when corporate money is on your side.

*The Americans do not mind criticizing their own president (or most things American - provided you make it clear you still love America) but get very pissed (off) if anyone else dares to.

*Macchiavelli said, “The Prince will be known by the men he has around him”. Bush and his cronies have surrounded themselves with people who think and believe as he does. And John Howard has done the same. This helps explain why things have gone so wrong, why neocons now say they would not have recommended the invasion of Iraq had they known the Administration was so incompetent. Have a look at Australia and some of the States: the same thing is going on. Good leaders cherish difference and diversity and seek out opposing views. Anyone who does the oppposite should not exercise the powers of a leadership position, certainly not as a politician.

*bush has done what the democrats couldn’t. no one else could have brought the republicans to the disastrous state they are in. so much is coming out about iraq now that it really looks like wolfowitz-cheney-rumsfeld effectively stabbed the US army in back, so contemptuous were they of professional military advice and, well, reality. some US commentators are even wondering if the GOP will implode, the disillusionment is so great.

*Is Bush a lame duck? I see him as a loose cannon.

http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2007/02/08/bush-a-byword/

[NMMNG]

1. Bush the new "Caveman"?

:rofl:

[lebkuchen]

2. David Hicks is a huge issue in Australia, and rightly so

He's been held in Gitmo for over 5 years w/no charges filed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hicks

An aside, I hadn't realized John Howard was known in Australia as "the rodent" or "Ratty." We have a chimp, and they have a rat.

#33. The dead line Howard set to his crony Bush for charges to be laid against Hicks; the 14th of February has come gone.

To get a result, maybe ‘the rodent’ should quit channelling his ultimatums through Bush and the Republicans and direct all requests to the Democrats, just like Bush now has to do.

MAJOR MICHAEL MORI:
“I think that’s the whole thing. With David Hicks, no-one is saying David actually did anything wrong or hurt anybody, just he was on the wrong side. When you say he’s accused of being on the other side, so because he was on the other side we can go ahead and take away those fundamental rights and protections that we give to our murderers and our child molesters and our rapists, and to our corrupt politicians. They get it. Why doesn’t David Hicks rate the basic fundamental human values that we give everyone? If he’s violated the law and you try him in a fair system, fine. They don’t want to give him that fair shake, unfortunately because I think his case has become political and the politics of it don’t want to - the first Military Commissions can’t be acquittals. They couldn’t afford that.”

[NMMNG]

3. I was referring to a US ad campaign

that's very similar to the one referenced in the OP. It's for GEICO car insurance and the slogan is "So easy a caveman could do it". There have been several ads but one shows a caveman at a laptop computer. I was wondering if maybe the Bush ad was a parody of the GEICO caveman ads. It rather fits...

[Auggie]

4. "So easy, a Bush could do it." That's funny.

[lebkuchen]

6. Geico is or was an advertising contributor to Rush Limbaugh

so I'm totally unfamiliar with its campaigns.

I thought you might be referencing one of the comments on the blog.

Thanks for clearing that up.

[crispini]

5. I saw it on the way to the airport in Melbourne.

I thought it was pretty funny, actually.

[lebkuchen]

7. glad to see that it's all over Australia

or at least in the bigger cities.

Cheney probably did run across it.