Game of Thrones: Bush's Head Gets a Makeover

mahiskali writes "After apologizing for using a likeness of former President George W. Bush's head in the season finale of the first season of 'Game of Thrones,' HBO has digitally altered the offending scene. After releasing an formal apology, HBO proceeded to yank the episode off all digital platforms, as well as halt distribution of the Season 1 box sets. The episode is now back with an altered head; more hair, less chin. Show creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss later clarified, 'We use a lot of prosthetic body parts on the show: heads, arms, etc. We can't afford to have these all made from scratch, especially in scenes where we need a lot of them, so we rent them in bulk. After the scene was already shot, someone pointed out that one of the heads looked like George W. Bush.'"

you what?

[alphatel]

They Digitally Edited Out the likeness of Bush? An apology is one thing, but why the fuck does anyone need to remaster post-release films which contain accidental heads?

Couldn't see it.

[IorDMUX]

Okay, I watched the clips. I saw the before and after pictures.

And I didn't see the faintest hint of resemblance. Am I the only one?

Re:you what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Respecting his successor by suggesting that the only reason Obama is targeting the "Bush tax cuts" is because it has "Bush" in the name? Or were you asleep when he started throwing his retard around again back in April?

Re:you what?

[firewrought]

So your idea that Republicans are somehow to blame for this is not backed up by the FACTS. Sorry, bub! Numbers don't lie!

If you have a problem with any of the numbers I brought up, speak up.

Quoting numbers without context is a good way to hide assumptions and misrepresent a complex situation. And economies are inherently complex. I think to be a Republican apologist for the 2008-2012 U.S. financial crisis, you have to mitigate a handful of factors:

• A Republican congress repealed Glass-Stegal, paving the way for the bad banking practices evident in the subprime morgtage crisis.
• A Republican administration led the charge to war in Afghanistan and Iraq, which was very costly.
• A Republican administration instituted large tax cuts during a war.

Of course, probably the easiest way to mitigate these is to point out the unclean hands here... Clinton approved Gramm-Leach-Bliley, Obama extended the Bush-era tax cuts, and the Democratic congress went along with the war effort.

I think the Daily Show called it right once: Republicans are the party of bad ideas; Democrats are the party of no ideas.

Re:you what?

[demachina]

There are so many things wrong in your post I'm not sure I can cover them all in limited time.

Citing the unemployment rate a year in to Obama's term and somehow blaming it on him is one of the more spectacular ones. The economy had just entered free fall when Obama took office. There was absolutely nothing anyone was going to do to stop it in a year, other than squander even larger amounts of borrowed money on stimulus than they did.

"was able to get his agenda through the Democratic Congress, where Bush could not"

Speaking of FACTS you just went off the rails dude. Bush had Republican control of the House for six years, and Senate control for four years. Democrats are pathetic and hopeless in the opposition obstructuing anything. The Republicans are extremely good at it.

Bush gutted every regulatory body in sight, especially the SEC, through executive orders and appointments which contributed more than anything to corporate running amuck. He rammed through huge tax cuts which started the downhill slide in to huge deficits, passed Medicare D which also added to the huge deficits, passed No Child Left Behind which did nothing but damage to the educational system, passed the Patriot act which eviscerated civil liberties, and ran two staggeringly expensive and largely pointless wars whose only lasting accomplishment will be a huge pile of debt and a bunch of traumatized vets.

The only two things Obama managed to pass were Obamacare which was a huge giveaway to the insurance and drug companies & will hopefully overturned tomorrow. And then there was the stimulus package, a mostly stupid squandering of money but considering the economy was in free fall it probably had to be done in some form . Other than the hasn't dont much of anything since he can't get anything past the Republicans in the House. So called "financial reform" and regulation didn't fix anything by the time Wall Street was done lobbying it in to the ground.

There is plenty of blame to go around for the collapse, Clinton, Rubin, Summers, Geithner, Greenspan, Frank and Dodd all deserve some. But you can't change the simple fact the economy spiralled out of control and blew up on Bush's watch, Paulson helped, and they deserve massive amounts of credit.

Re:you what?

[Volante3192]

I would be shocked if anyone that was so easily offended was watching the show.
Prepare to be shocked:

Orgs. like the Parents Television Council literally watch these shows to BE offended just so they can complain.

Anyone rational goes, "Hmm, I don't think I'll like the content of this show." *changes channel*
PTC goes, "I KNOW I'm going to be offended by this show, let's take detailed notes and send them to the FCC because that's what Jesus would do!"

Re:you what?

[mophab]

Not even close. The guy that threw the shoes at Bush got 3 years. Bush never lifted a finger for him.

http://articles.cnn.com/2009-03-12/world/iraq.shoe.thrower_1_zaidi-al-maliki-and-bush-shoes?_s=PM:WORLD [cnn.com]

Re:you what?

[NorQue]

I've just seen the season one finale last week, I knew about that head and had been actively looking for it, but other than seeing a couple of heads on spears in that particular scene I couldn't make out which one was the Bush head. This was blown way out of proportion, I agree with the GP, if the directors hadn't said anything on the cemmentary nobody would've known.