Cover Story

Guardian removes call for assassins column from website

by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com

October 24, 2004

The UK Guardian has removed its anti-Bush calling-all-assassins column from its website.
"The Guardian has taken the remarkable step by replacing a column in which the writer appeared to call for the assassination of George W. Bush with an apology," reports The National Business Review.

Make that a Guardian sort-of, lukewarm mea culpa.

Guardian columnist Charlie Brooker, who usually reviews television programs, ended his October 3 column, Dumb Show with the words, "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr--where are you now that we need you?"

The column, a diatribe against George W. Bush, reviewed the televised presidential debates.

Using the final sentence calling for Booth, Oswald and Hinckley Jr., as it main headline, Internet giant Drudge Report ran it in red.

Some, not the least of whom is Florida attorney John B. Thompson saw the column as call for the assassination of George W. Bush. Thompson called in Washington D.C.'s Secret Service, who told him they were investigating.

There is no confirmation whether the Secret Service called upon Brooker or Matt Drudge of the Drudge Report, but the Guardian withdrew the article from its website today.

The daily replaced it with the following apology: "The final sentence of a column in The Guide on Saturday caused offence to some readers. The Guardian associates itself with the following statement from the writer.

"Charlie Brooker apologises for any offence caused by his comments relating to President Bush in his TV column, Screen Burn. The views expressed in this column are not those of The Guardian. Although flippant and tasteless, his closing comments were intended as an ironic joke, not as a call to action--an intention he believed regular readers of his humourous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

"All of which leads one to wonder", says the National Business Review, "whether The Guardian doesn't have a special, private dictionary in which "irony" has a definition not readily available to the rest of the world.

"Welcome as the apology was, it fell short. Ironically, the Guardian seems unaware of the full import of the original column. But the well known Powerline Blog perhaps summed it up best: "This is, of course, where the liberal campaign of hatred and violence has been going for some time. I do think it is likely that someone will get killed; I hope it isn't President Bush. One can only wonder: if such a tragedy occurs, will the liberals come to their senses?"

At press time, the "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr--where are you now that we need you?" headline was still posted on the Drudge Report.