Matt Yglesias

Beware the BushCow

Via Kevin Drum, an Iraqi chant that doesn’t sound very catchy in English:

In the holy Shiite city of Najaf, 100 miles south of Baghdad, demonstrators chanted: “Bush, Bush, is a cow, your farewell was by a shoe,” and, “The shoe got its goal straightly, but Maliki turned it away.”

This got me thinking “are there any images easily available online that depict Bush as a cow?” The answer is yes:

I would have thought that in the Arab world Bush would be analogized to the unclean and unholy pig.

25 Responses to “Beware the BushCow”

1. mark f Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 12:22 pm

   I think “Bush, Bush, is a cow. Your farewell was by a shoe” works quite nicely in English, actually. Not so much the scond half.

2. James Gary Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

   MarkF-

   It scans if you change the first part to “Bush, Bush— moo moo moo.”

3. MikeJ Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 12:43 pm

   Pigs aren’t considered especially clean in western culture either, yet we manage to call people jackasses or sons of bitches.

   People seem to pick up one factoid about the middle east and assume the entire region is incessantly focused on that one fact to the exclusion of all others.

4. Sami Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 12:59 pm

   I’ve been thinking about it, but surprisingly in Arabic the word “pig” is probably the least common insult you would throw at a person. You’d call him a dog, a donkey, a mule, a monkey, or even simply an animal, before you’d call someone a pig.

   Maybe it’s because you very rarely see a pig in the Middle East, so it’s never on anybody’s mind.

5. Brad Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 1:13 pm

   mmmmmmmmmmmm….. bacon…

6. wph Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 1:51 pm

   Holy Shiite, Bush wanted to bring freedom of speech to the Middle East, and now he has.

7. charles Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 1:55 pm

   As someone who genuinely loves cows i find this image outrageously offensive!

   Isn’t brutally slaughtering them enough, do we have to defame their images as well?

   to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen:

   I live in Texas, i’ve seen cows, i’ve known cows.
   Mr. Bush, you are no cow.

8. TH Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 2:26 pm

   I don’t think pigs are unholy, just unclean. But I’m not Muslim so what do I know.

9. Trevor Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 4:03 pm

   Pigs are surprisingly intelligent, so calling W one would be undeserved high praise. In the 70’s Johnny Carson had a running debate with Ed McMahon over which was the smarter animal? – a pig or a horse. Actually, they’re both pretty smart. Cats are much smarter than dogs, and even an amoeba’s smarter than David Brooks.

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