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“There ought to be limits to freedom” George W Bush

When George W. Bush was running as a Republican Presidential candidate, he had many powerful and influential allies.  He also had some very clever enemies.

Zack Exley, who worked for the anti-corporate website ®™ark, bought the domain name www.GWBush.com for US$70 in 1998.  With the help of Andy Bichlebaum and Mike Bonnano, otherwise known as The Yes Men, they set up a parody website to Bush’s official campaign site, to reveal “in more honest terms” the real reasons Bush wanted to be President: “to help the rich at the expense of the poor and the environment”.

According to Newsweek, the Bush campaign had “pre-emptively purchased over 60 domain names (including www.bushbites.com and www.bushsux.com)” – however, the domain purchased by Exley managed to slip under the radar.

Visually, the spoof virtually mirrored the official site, www.georgewbush.com, and as the New York Times reported in 1999 it appeared “to be an official Bush campaign site, one patriotically tinged in red, white and blue and filled with thoughtful thoughts from a man running ‘a campaign with compassion’.” 

However upon closer inspection, www.GWBush.com’s slogan was “Hypocrisy with Bravado”, that contrasted Bush’s drug use in his youth with his hardline policies on drugs, not to mention the Bush family’s dubious financial dealings.

According to Graham Meikle, author of Future Active: Media Activism and the Internet, the site invited visitors to “take part in cultural and corporate sabotage projects – edit rented videotapes; jump the fence at Disneyland and request political asylum; insert plastic slaughtered-cow toys into Happy Meals.”

Not surprisingly, as soon as the Bush campaign team were alerted, they had their legal team send Exley a letter warning him that he should “cease and desist”, and threatening further action should their warnings not be heeded.

When questioned about the site at a televised press conference, Bush declared that “there ought to be limits to freedom”.

Leah Craven

Links
®™ark
http://www.rtmark.com/legacy/bush.html
‘Cease and desist’ letter from Bush’s legal team
http://www.rtmark.com/legacy/bushcnd.html
The Yes Men - details their involvement with the site
http://www.theyesmen.org/hijinks/bush/gwbushcom.shtml
Newsweek – article
http://www.rtmark.com/legacy/more/articles/bushnewsweek/19990526.html
New York Times – article
http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/053099pol-briefs.html
Wired News – article
http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,41293,00.html

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