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Last updated on March 6th, 2018 at 12:31 am
“Does President Bush have it in for the press corps?” asks Newsweek’s Holly Bailey:
Touring a Caterpillar factory in Peoria, Ill., the Commander in Chief got behind the wheel of a giant tractor and played chicken with a few wayward reporters. Wearing a pair of stylish safety glasses – at least more stylish than most safety glasses – Bush got a mini-tour of the factory before delivering remarks on the economy. “I would suggest moving back,” Bush said as he climbed into the cab of a massive D-10 tractor. “I’m about to crank this sucker up.” As the engine roared to life, White House staffers tried to steer the press corps to safety, but …
Click for the tragic outcome, which may be guessed at by these chilling extracts:
• “Get out of the way!” a news photographer yelled.
• “I think he might run us over!” said another.
• Bush looked out the tractor’s window and laughed …
- Oh, if only….Posted by Challeron on 2007 01 31 at 08:36 AM • permalink
- Had one of Cat’s larger machines—maybe a D10, but I suspect it was a D8—parked outside my dorm the end of my freshman year in college. I swear you could have stepped from a third floor window onto the roof of the thing.
What a pity the press didn’t pull a Rachael Corrie.
Posted by Rob Crawford on 2007 01 31 at 08:41 AM • permalink
- Seems another thread of Corrie jokes is on its way. 🙂Posted by Dylan Kissane on 2007 01 31 at 08:43 AM • permalink
- It was a plastic D-10 brought to you by Lego ™.Posted by surfmaster on 2007 01 31 at 08:51 AM • permalink
- ’I think he might run us over!” said another’
He didn’t get any of them? That’s what I call a failed presidency.
Posted by Dave Surls on 2007 01 31 at 08:55 AM • permalink
- ’I think he might run us over!” said another’
That’s the problem with most reporters – they think too much. If they were paid to think, their job title would be “Thinker” instead of “Reporter”.
Just report the bloody news and stop trying to tell us what it means.
Posted by mr creosote on 2007 01 31 at 09:00 AM • permalink
- Follow the link to the Caterpillar site and you’ll find that if the President left the tractor in first gear, as seems likely, the menace to public safety was moving forward at a maximum of 2.5 miles per hour.Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2007 01 31 at 09:10 AM • permalink
- Considering the D10 hasn’t been manufactured for over 20 years (as confirmed by the wikipedia link in Tim’s post), he must have been in their museum section.
Unless she meant D10T, but I know the press never gets technical details wrong…
Posted by attilathepun on 2007 01 31 at 09:12 AM • permalink
- #13
Follow the link to the Caterpillar site and you’ll find that if the President left the tractor in first gear, as seems likely, the menace to public safety was moving forward at a maximum of 2.5 miles per hour.
But that’s over 4 kilometres an hour!
Perhaps the media were being stage-managed by Pallywood?
- Being a Southerner, I typically don’t care to quote Sherman, but he hit the nail on the head with this one (and it is applicable to this thread):
If I had my choice I would kill every reporter in the world, but I am sure we would be getting reports from Hell before breakfast.
William Tecumseh Sherman
- My goodness these reporters are whiny!Posted by Not My Problem on 2007 01 31 at 09:46 AM • permalink
- These Rachael Corrie references are falling “flat” could be we’re spreading ourselves a little “thin” with these puns.
Yeah, I’m done. I’d “batter” get back to my work.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 01 31 at 09:54 AM • permalink
- sorry buggered the link – someone at amazon is a wee smartarse – take a look at the heading Inspirational Guidance ??
- Alright, so I sould have read the previous thread with all the Rachael Corrie puns.
Now I’m just coming across as a second rate piker. Well fuck me, I’ve got a job you know. Not like I’ve got a fancy-ass Tardis so that I can make up posts before I’ve even thought of them.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 01 31 at 10:12 AM • permalink
- “Ahhhh, my favorite fantasy: sitting in the cab of a giant tractor or bulldozer, and chasing * hobbling* journalists across a broad, treeless plain . . .”
There, fixed it for you.
Caaaaatepillar!
which has treads that sweep across the plain
and the press corps’ rears make small greasy smears
and diesel drowns out cries of pain!
Caaaaatepilar!
with a blade of tempered carbon steel
makes the plain more flat
and jour-na-lists go splat
with an impact you can hardly feel!
We know they’re too stupid to run
It’s not sporting, but Gee how it’s fun!
So when we saaaaaay Whoops
You’ve just cashed your chips! HA!
We really mean that Darwin was really on to sooomething
Catepillar HOORAY!
- #30 I had a fantasy about Rachel Corrie and a six-pack, but the beer was always flat.Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 31 at 11:56 AM • permalink
- #34: Some are, but not even they are swift enough to escape the 5 millimeter per year rise in sea level.
Saunter away! Saunter away!
Posted by Paul Zrimsek on 2007 01 31 at 11:57 AM • permalink
- Seriously, what makes anyone think those fat-assed WH press corps type can move faster than 2.5 MPH, particularly given the clothing they wear? Bush was just being sporting. You really don’t shoot sitting ducks, you know.Posted by JorgXMcKie on 2007 01 31 at 12:52 PM • permalink
- #38
“You really don’t shoot sitting ducks, you know.
Errr, why not? It doesn’t make them any less tasty.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 01 31 at 12:58 PM • permalink
- Memo
To: All RWBD’s
From: wronwright, Transportation CoordinatorIn the past 30 minutes we’ve received 22 requests for something entitled “Caterpillar D-10 Death Tractor, Turbocharged, Rotary Blade”.
We do not have death tractors. We do not stock death tractors. We have death cars, death pick up trucks, death Humvees, death helicopters, death fighter jets, death bombers, and a few Romulan death birds. We also have an orbital space station equipped with one death laser cannon. But no death tractors.
Please consult a landscaping equipment rental office in your local area.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 31 at 01:14 PM • permalink
• “I think he might run us over!” said another.
That might be why he asked you to move back.
Though I guess this means he wasn’t trying to run them over, since he said “I would suggest moving back” and not “hold still” as I would do. 😉
Posted by Patrick Chester on 2007 01 31 at 01:40 PM • permalink
- #43 He’ll never get them if he steers to the left, Pache, that’s the direction they move with practiced speed.
P.s. PIMF I really can spell Caterpillar, I just hadn’t had any coffee when I started singing.
And when we sa-a-a-ay, YEE!
“Reporters come and pla-a-a-ay!” HAW!
We really mean “There’s a new special down at I-i-i-i Hop!
Caterpillar purèe!
- #46 “Omnibus”, then more of us can enjoy the ride. Since Wronwright obviously did not act on the memo in time to order up a fleet. And while going through Sandy Berger’s dry cleaning I found Wron’s copy, damp with lake water, poked full of spear holes and covered in round stains that stank of mead. There will be repercussions. Even I, a mere Blackguard 2nd class (though one with poison ivy clusters) knew Our Dark Lord ordered one. Why else send ChimpyMacjesusburton over to take the test drive?
- I love the snide remark about stylish safety glasses. The various Caterpiller factories, and other large factories, which I visited during my years in industrial sales, all stock safety glasses for issue to visitors. They are typically modern stylish ones sized to fit over regular glasses. The scumsucker who wrote that was in all probability wearing an identical pair.
- #41: Then what was that I saw you in last week? Sure looked like a death tractor to me.
Unless you’re taking to disguising the Tardis again.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 01 31 at 02:44 PM • permalink
- Well, coming from a reporter whose CV is about as impressive as Alex May’s (earlier thread), except Alex May actually graduated from college, whereas Our Girl Holly merely “attended” the Univ of Oklahoma–though coming from Oklahoma you’d think she’d know the difference between a bulldozer and a tractor, e.g. see John Deere
- Has anybody read the BDS-infected commentors after the Newsweek post? They’re a riot.Posted by Ed Driscoll on 2007 01 31 at 03:39 PM • permalink
- #56–Ed: Yes, those are pretty much laugh-a-minute BDS comments that serves to reinforce the group circle jerk that goes on in the MSM–keep applauding this red-meat writing, and they’ll throwing the red-meat to the BDS crowd, a self-enforcing myopia. Is it any wonder that talk radio and Fox news attracts even the modest numbers they do?
- Geez louise, you would think I had declared that beer and smokes were no longer allowed at VRWC social outings.
(wronwright ruefully recalls that one time he had made such a declaration at a RWDB henchman-minion bonding retreat in a less than successful attempt to lighten the acromonious mood, shakes away memory)
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We do not stock death tractors. And we have no plans to stock death tractors. In an isolated occasion where a Evil Lord like Karl “requests” a death tractor, we will special order it. With all the trimmings. Hindu water buffalo hide seats. Koala fur covered steering wheel. Bar no expenses.
But for anyone that is not an Evil Lord—
(wronwright glares at the rather large crowd that has assembled outside his office, while holding onto an exact reproduction of Andrea’s paddle nicknamed Destiny)
— and still demands a death vehicle, you can drive the Ford Pintos and AMC Gremlins currently parked in Lot 13.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 01 31 at 03:58 PM • permalink
- Ah, but there are some sensible, non-moonbattish comments, too. I’m glad to see that some people on the Right are willing to read Newsweek (so I don’t have to).
But you all are overlooking the main issue: if Holly Bailey and Marieke Hardy agreed to a mud-wrestling match, would it be more or less entertaining than watching Bush scoop Helen Thomas up in the bucket of an earthmover?
- Maybe it wasn’t a Caterpiller, but a Bolo WV M1 Continental Siege Unit. Now there’s a death tractor.Posted by Steve Skubinna on 2007 01 31 at 04:19 PM • permalink
- Journos:
Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
In no way inspired by the steam roller scen in Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery
- “I think he might run us over!”
If only….
Posted by Barbara Skolaut on 2007 01 31 at 05:05 PM • permalink
- Don’t laugh, my family was an AMC family. We owned Classics (3), Rebel, Ambassador, Hornet, and the car I learned how to drive in, a 330 Rambler American with 3 in the column. Ah, that was a car.
And my first husband and I almost bought a Pacer, but they looked like something clowns would come out of.
So Lot 13 would be old home week to me. (Now driving a POS [I call it Revenge of Korea] KIA; hum, maybe wron wouldn’t notice the switch).
Ah, I’ll be down the hall (and around the corner and heading for lot 13).
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 01 31 at 05:35 PM • permalink
- I was studying in the US in 1970 when there was a stupid campaign against Caterpillar Co shares because they were selling them to the military.
I told the student inspired by this self-denial to stop driving his Chev because GM also sold things to the military. He wasn’t amused.Is there something about the Caterpillar Co that freaks out stupid US pacifists every generation??
- A pathetic effort considering the quality of the hardware.
I’m a three-reporter-a-day man myself.
#60: I liked this comment:
I suppose if [it] was a cigar factory during the Clinton years, the female reporters would have needed to run for cover.
Posted by Sensible Swim on 2007 01 31 at 06:39 PM • permalink
- We call them bulldozers, too, 81Alpha. And I take one day off, and paco replaces me. At least I still have my company car. I do still have my company car, don’t I?Posted by andycanuck on 2007 01 31 at 07:23 PM • permalink
- #74—We call ‘em “bulldozers” too, but it’s more or less vernacular. On the sales sites it’ll mostly be “crawler tractor” because if you try to say “track tractor” quickly it sounds retarded.
There is no need for PACO to stock death tractors. Caterpillar, John Deere, or any of several Japanese manufacturers led by Komatsu will deliver one, complete with GPS target guidance and gyrostabilization of the cutting blade, whenever you order it, given a suitable down payment. This is because any machine that big and powerful qualifies as a death machine, whereas you have to work to construct a Death Pinto.
PACO will, however, customize the stock machine with lasers, ack-ack sponsons, chrome knives on the track pins, and similar aftermarket items. Contact wronwright. Have your credit card ready (American Express Invisible or better). If you don’t know how to contact wronwright you don’t need the machine anyway.
Regards,
Ric
- Man, working as an entry level employee for this VRWC is full of variety! One day I might be driving up to the San Fransisco water reservoir and pumping in what Mr Paco refers to as “Flouride”, and another day, under the instruction of MarkL I might be attending an anti war protest in London dressed as a giant Tony Blair puppet whilst discretely releasing a gas into the air.
Why, just the other day I went to a hospital in Ottawa to deliver a bunch of tiny computer chips to a well known brain surgeon.
And now, out of the blue, Mr Wronwright has furiously instructed me to re-label all the paperwork for 180 “Death Tractors” in storage in an underground bunker near Washington DC. For some bizzare reason he urgently wants them to appear in all official records as something called “Edsels”.
Ours is not to reason why…
- #64 and 67, video of this near atrocity has been found on youtube:
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 01 31 at 09:15 PM • permalink
- Holly wrote, “almost as much fun as seeing your life flash before your eyes.”
Personally, if I had been one of the reporters, I would have moved back when they told me to. I guess reporters have more trouble with English and estimating danger than I do. Likewise they vastly overdramatize things.
I guess I’d make a bad reporter.
Oh, and Holly? The hysterical drama queen act just makes you look like an idiot.
- Posted By: colin chase (1/31/2007 at 1:28:23 PM)
Comment: It’s not about polotics, it’s about using a tractor to threaten people with death or injury. THE OBVIOUS IDEA BEING: If you get in my way I will injure or kill you in fact get out of my way or I will injure or kill you. He should be arrest and impeached. This kind of behavior doesn’t belong in the white house end of story.
Can I get a explanation of how the President was threatening to kill or injure people? Or is this something that I would need to be a Moonbat to understand?
- Press corps? Give President Bush a break. Horsing around on that tractor is probably the first fun he’s had in months, considering that he’s balancing a delicate international situation, running a war, and dealing with all the press Nazis who pitch a fit when he does what any guy does and has fun with a big truck! Cripes!
Are there any available positions in the Dark Lord’s Death Tractor Corps, or do I have to reapply at the Ankh-Morpork head office?
Posted by Tungsten Monk on 2007 01 31 at 10:20 PM • permalink
- I posted a link to the youtube video from #80 on the Newsweek site and it lasted all of 30 seconds before it was deleted.
The left really lack a sense of humour.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 01 31 at 10:33 PM • permalink
- Personally, if I had been one of the reporters, I would have moved back when they told me to.
What, and be seen as a toady and pushover who takes orders from the HitlerChimp?
Heck, I’m surprised that none of them deliberately walked toward the dozer when Dubya asked them to move back. Pancakes to power, man!
- Were the journalists wearing identical “Che” T-shirts by any chance?
Well done President Bush, his popularity will be way up after this.
- BTW, apropos of not much, but one of the crazy comments at Newsweek reminded me: As far as I’m concerned, one of the best ways to distinguish between nutcases and normal people is whether they know that a certain word is not spelled propoganda. I swear, it seems like at least nine out of ten times that you see that misspelling it’s surrounded by utter tripe.
- “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism, until the death tractor hits it. Then it’s the lowest form of patriotism.” –Thomas JeffersonPosted by Paul Zrimsek on 2007 01 31 at 11:06 PM • permalink
- I liked this one:
Posted By: Alen Redding (1/31/2007 at 7:06:25 PM)
Comment: For the guys telling people to get a sense of humor: Think for a second. What if one of the reporters had decided he REALLY wanted to make news, not moved, and had been struck.
Yeah, that would be really bad. It would be especially tragic if the person in question had children—the human race would be measurably improved by removing those genes from the pool.
Sheesh. Bush is a Texas rancher. He probably has a D4 or D6; they’re just the thing for pulling a root plow to restore the Texas grasslands invaded by non-native species, without using Gaia-unfriendly chemicals. I’m more likely to believe he knows what he’s doing than I am to credit the reporters with anything like mature judgement.
Regards,
Ric
- Many thanks Ric! Perhaps wronwright and the tardis had something to with it disappearing and then reappearing….Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 02 01 at 12:27 AM • permalink
- #77 Dminor: Woohoo! Look at all the makeout room in the back. I will miss the Bentley, however.Posted by andycanuck on 2007 02 01 at 01:26 AM • permalink
#62: Pictures, pictures!
Sorry, paco, but photographs of the Bolo tanks are classified, and are not available to the public.
However, there is useful technical (but very general) data available for the Bolo Mark XII (Continental Siege Unit) here and here. Technical data on the other Bolo variants may be found here.
Read and drool! These babies make armored bulldozers toys in comparison.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 02 01 at 01:28 AM • permalink
- Sorry, I buggered the first link on Bolo tanks. Try this.Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 02 01 at 01:31 AM • permalink
What if one of the reporters had decided he REALLY wanted to make news, not moved, and had been struck.
Then we know that the spirit of Rachael Corrie lives in the MSM.
And RWDB everywhere will be pressured to come up with pancake press jokes.
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 02 01 at 01:34 AM • permalink
- What I want to know is where can I see the video of this incident?
Where all those journalists so scared of the dozer bearing down on them that no one took a picture or shot any video?
As a sign of solidarity with the American President I now propose that Howard too should fire up a Cat and bear down on some journalists. The journalists keep saying that Howard does whatever Bush does, this time the can be right.
- Tungsten Monk –
Are there any available positions in the Dark Lord’s Death Tractor Corps … ?
To the 200 or so henchman and minions that have assembled in Lot 14 wearing Afrika Corp uniforms (and yes, you too paco, in your Rommel attire), there are
–> no death tractors to drive. <–
Feel free to join Elizabeth, Imperial Keeper, in Lot 13 and drive the Ford Pintos out of the VRWC secured lot. Be sure not to bump into a Pinto in front of you or you will find both vehicles bursting into flames. In such an event, we will blame French Muslims.
Note to MarkL: Please don’t telephone me at 3 am. I don’t care if they’ve been standing in the cold since yesterday afternoon singing the Horst Wessel Song. In fact, I rather like the idea.
Posted by wronwright on 2007 02 01 at 06:40 AM • permalink
- #71 No, my late father (peace on his memory) had a passion for robin’s egg blue. Every %!#$ car he had for about 15 years (including the dark-blue American and the steel-blue Ambassador) he had specially painted robin’s egg blue.
He was a very good man, but he sure liked that color. He even tried to persuade my first stepmother to paint the house that color. She, thank heaven, refused.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 02 01 at 12:06 PM • permalink
- Pinto, my %!#. I found a stash of Javelins and AMX’s behind them. Forgot where you put them, eh?
Tungsten got the blue AMX and I got a green Javelin, just like my brother used to have.
(Actually, my ex-husband had a p!#% green Pinto when I met him that would cut off for absolutely no reason when driving down the interstate. It’s one of the few times I feared for my life and refused to drive it after that).
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 02 01 at 12:14 PM • permalink
- Speaking of killer dozers and such, anybody remember the Science Fiction book that featured “Hammer’s Slammers”.
Hover Tanks. Now that’s an idea that I could get behind.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 02 01 at 05:20 PM • permalink
- BTW Wronwright.
Is Icarus Industries a subsidiary?
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 02 01 at 05:28 PM • permalink
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