ROURKE: 'BUSH WAS IN THE WRONG PLACE AT THE WRONG TIME'

Monday January 12,2009
London Daily Express

Actor MICKEY ROURKE sympathises with U.S. President GEORGE W. BUSH - insisting he doesn't know how any politician could have successfully navigated America after the 9/11 attacks on New York.

The Hollywood tough-guy spoke out about his political views in a candid interview with Britain's GQ magazine, and admits he doesn't understand why so many people blame Bush for a string of world issues - including Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in the West.

And the actor, who claims he didn't follow last year's (08) historic U.S. election battle between Barack Obama and John McCain, urges the public to consider the tremendous pressure the controversial president was under following the terror attacks on the World Trade Center in 2001.

He tells the publication, "President Bush was in the wrong place at the wrong time, I don't know how anyone could have handled this situation.

"I don't give a f**k who's in office, Bush or whoever, there is no simple solution to this problem... I'm not one of those who blames Bush for everything. This s**t between Christians and Muslims goes back to the Crusades, doesn't it.

"It's too easy to blame everything on one guy. These are unpredictable, dangerous times, and I don't think that anyone really knows quite what to do."

Rourke also confesses he was so angry after 9/11, he wanted to fight the war on terror himself.

He adds, "I'm not politically educated. But I do know that after 9/11 I wanted to go over there, you know what I'm saying?"

And the star is baffled by the U.K.'s approach to fundamentalists - insisting he was taken aback by the freedom of speech allowed in the U.K.

He explains, "I was in London recently and I couldn't believe all these hate-talking fanatics you have over here who are allowed to carry on doing their thing even when a bus full of women and children gets blown to pieces.

"I know you've deported one or two of them, but it seems crazy. I think there is worse to come, something terrible will happen to either America or the U.K., or France even. I don't think these fundamentalists should be allowed to talk all this crap, and brainwashing these young kids."

THERE IS apparently some intelligence in Hollywood....

I made this very point the other day about President Bush's performance over the past eight years to a friend of mine.

I find it interesting when my "blue friends" get more than a bit uncomfortable and unnerved and suddenly change th conversation when I make the suggestion when President-elect Barack Obama is really going back to center and is already bucking heads with the liberal Democrats.

So many Democrats have taken snippets of what President-elect Obama has said during the campaign and used "projection" to make it mean what they think it means. Believe me, I see it at as great vision that Pres. Obama is going to be disappointing a lot of liberal Democrats when he takes office next week. He said he wants to close Gitmo....like John McCain...but it could be YEARS before that actually happens. And while gay activists march around with placards with Obama's campaign logo in rainbow colors, he has made it very clear that he is against gay marriage and will not support it in anyway...yet the gay community rallies around Pres.-elect Obama as though he is their biggest ally.

To say the very least, methinks it's going to be an interesting three-and-half years.

I didn't vote for President-elect Obama, but I'm going to be his biggest supporter...because he represents a major "change" -- for better or worse. And that's good news for the greatest country in the world.