When George W Bush was President of the United States of America, we sometimes intimated that we were Canadian while we were traveling. Anti-American sentiment was high, especially in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and parts of Asia, that it seemed smarter to create a new nationality for ourselves.
Traveling while Barak Obama has been President, especially in Indonesia, has been fantastic as now I can say, “Cami orang Obama. Cami orang America.” I am a person of Obama. I am a person from America. Now locals are so happy to meet us.
A Canadian family shared their deck of Bush Playing Cards from Project Pretzel. Each card in the deck has as a photo and quotes or comment from someone in the Bush Administration. They remind us why we occasionally preferred to be Canadian.
Ace of Spades: George W. Bush, President of the United States of America:
“I’m the commander—see, I don’t need to explain—I do not need to explain why I say things. That’s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don’t feel like I owe anybody an explanation.” –quoted in Bob Woodward, Bush at War
Ace of Clubs: Dick Cheney “Big Time” Vice-President, Former Halliburton CEO
$36 million: 2000 Halliburton income
$7 billion: Value to “no-bid” Contract given to Halliburton to rebuild Iraq
13,500: pages of energy documents Cheney refuses to give Congress
135: Minutes Cheney was President during Bush’s colonoscopy
Ace of Hearts: Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
“As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don’t know we don’t know.”
Ace of Diamonds: John Ashcroft, Attorney General
Ashcroft’s attacks on the Bill of Rights are well documented. Less publicized is the ritual that he — an honorary Bob Jones University degree– performed upon assuming official duties; to emulate biblical kings, Ashcroft anointed himself with Crisco oil.
Two of Diamonds: Ann Veneman, Secretary of Agriculture
Veneman headlined an Agri-summit where she lectured developing nations on the need to accept genetically modified foods. The Agriculture Secretary is a former director of Calgene, a “frankenfood” company that extoled the virtues of a technology that has spliced fish genes into tomatoes.
Five of Clubs: Rod Paige, Secretary of Education
Doing his part to defend the Homeland and protect America’s children, Paige declared that the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, was a “terrorist organization.”
With this group in charge, it is no wonder mysterious events happened — like disappearing Weapons of Mass Destruction, and “unofficial” official wars without end. I am proud to say that President Obama will have four more years in the White House while remembering what truly makes America great.
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Lisa Ellen Niver is an award-winning travel expert who has explored 102 countries and six continents. A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, she worked on cruise ships for seven years and backpacked for three years in Asia. She is the founder of the website WeSaidGoTravel which is read in 235 countries and was named #3 on Rise Global’s top 1,000 Travel Blogs. Niver is a speaker at the Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Dallas Travel and Adventure Shows for 2023. Her podcast, “Make Your Own Map,” has been watched in more than 11 countries on 4 continents. Niver is represented by Chip MacGregor of MacGregor Literary, Inc. Look for her memoir in Fall 2023 from Post Hill Press/Simon and Schuster.
You can find Lisa Niver talking travel on broadcast television at KTLA TV Los Angeles, Satellite Media Tours, The Jet Set TV and Orbitz travel webisodes as well as her YouTube channel, where her WeSaidGoTravel videos have nearly 2 million views.
With more than 150,000 followers across social media, she has hosted Facebook Live for USA Today 10best, is verified on Twitter and listed on IMDb, and is the Social Media Manager for the Los Angeles Press Club.
As a journalist, Niver has interviewed Deepak Chopra, Olympic medalists, and numerous bestselling authors and been invited to both the Oscars and the United Nations. She has been a judge for the Gracie Awards for the Alliance of Women in Media, and has run 15 travel competitions on her website, publishing over 2,500 writers and photographers from 75 countries.
For her print and digital stories as well as her television segments, she has been awarded three Southern California Journalism Awards and two National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards and been a finalist twenty times.
Niver has published more than 2000 articles, in more than three dozen magazines and journals
including National Geographic, Wired, Teen Vogue, HuffPost Personal, POPSUGAR, Ms. Magazine, Luxury Magazine, Smithsonian, Sierra Club, Saturday Evening Post, AARP, AAA Explorer Magazine, American Airways, Delta Sky, enRoute (Air Canada), Hemispheres, Jewish Journal, Myanmar Times, BuzzFeed, Robb Report, Scuba Diver Life, Ski Utah, Trivago, Undomesticated, USA Today, TODAY, Wharton Magazine, and Yahoo.
https://bit.ly/m/lisaniver
Awards
National Arts and Entertainment Journalism Awards
2021 Winner: Book Critic: Ms. Magazine “Untamed: Brave Means Living From the Inside Out”
2019 Winner: Soft News Feature for Film/TV: KTLA TV “Oscars Countdown to Gold with Lisa Niver”
2019 Finalist for: Soft News, Business/Music/Tech/Art
Southern California Journalism Awards
2022 Finalist: Book Criticism
2021 Winner: Technology Reporting
2021 Finalist: Book Criticism
2020 Winner: Print Magazine Feature: Hemispheres Magazine, “Painter by the Numbers, Rembrandt”
2020 Finalist: Online Journalist of the Year, Activism Journalism, Educational Reporting, Broadcast Lifestyle Feature
2019 Finalist: Broadcast Television Lifestyle Segment for “Ogden Ski Getaway”
2018 Finalist: Science/Technology Reporting, Travel Reporting, Personality Profile
2017 Winner: Print Column “A Journey to Freedom over Three Passovers”
Social Media Presence
YouTube Channel: We Said Go Travel (1.7 million views)
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Twitter: lisaniver (90,000 followers)
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Pinterest: We Said Go Travel (20,000 followers and over 70,000 monthly views)
Facebook: lisa.niver (5,000 followers); We Said Go Travel (3,000 followers)
LinkedIn: lisaellenniver (9000 contacts)
3 responses to “When George Bush was President and other stories from the road”
The deck of cards is hilarious. I have said I was Canadian before.
When George W Bush was President of the United States of America, we sometimes intimated that we were Canadian while we were traveling. Anti-American sentiment was high, especially in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and parts of Asia, that it seemed smarter to create a new nationality for ourselves.
The deck of cards is hilarious. I have said I was Canadian before.
Ace of Hearts – is this a comedy skit, were these people really leading the country? Mind blowing stuff.
I agree. It is mind-blowing! Lisa