The Guardian does *not* want Bush assassinated!

Judging by the hysterical outrage from the hacks and wingnut drama queens of the American right, they don't seem to be able to distinguish between a satirical piece The Guardian's weekend listings magazine and an editorial or serious op-ed piece in the paper itself.

This is what Charlie Brooker (who's been involved in the satirical Brass Eye) had to say about George Bush's less than stellar performance in the first presidential debate, and the controversy about whether or not he'd been 'wired'.

Quite frankly, the man's either wired or mad. If it's the former, he should be flung out of office: tarred, feathered and kicked in the nuts. And if it's the latter, his behaviour goes beyond strange, and heads toward terrifying. He looks like he's listening to something we can't hear. He blinks, he mumbles, he lets a sentence trail off, starts a new one, then reverts back to whatever he was saying in the first place. Each time he recalls a statistic (either from memory or the voice in his head), he flashes us a dumb little smile, like a toddler proudly showing off its first bowel movement. Forgive me for employing the language of the playground, but the man's a tool.

So I sit there and I watch this and I start scratching my head, because I'm trying to work out why Bush is afforded any kind of credence or respect whatsoever in his native country. His performance is so transparently bizarre, so feeble and stumbling, it's a miracle he wasn't laughed off the stage. And then I start hunting around the internet, looking to see what the US media made of the whole "wire" debate. And they just let it die. They mentioned it in passing, called it a wacko conspiracy theory and moved on.

As for the final line (you'll have to read the article itself, I'm not going to quote it out of context), exactly how does it differ from the 'humourous entertainers' of the right such as Ann Coulter or Rush Limburgh, the heroes of the same freepi who are screeching blue murder at The Guardian?

Update:

The Guardian have now taken the offending article down, replacing it with this apology.

"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 humorous column would understand. He deplores violence of any kind."

On balance, it was probably a mistake to have printed it, especially as the website doesn't really distinguish between the listings magazine and the main paper.

I also understand that the paper's website was offline for several hours due to denial-of-service attacks. I know wingnuts tend to have a tin ear for satire, but I still think the Freepi are completely overreacting.