Mr. Shrub often fielded questions, sometimes unsolicited, from the audience.
Q: Do you really believe the things you say, or are you accidentally misleading us?
A: Now you’re getting kind of personal. So I guess what you’re suggesting is I’m a person. We’ll talk later. You won’t be aware of it, but we’ll be talking.
Q: Why do you keep lying us into wars?
A: It’s true that in war, truth is the first casualty, and we have to do a little deceptionizing, but only on the battlefield (the world) and only during the war, which is, regrettably or not, permanent.
I think we’re all agreed that killing large numbers of civilians should be a last resort. But we have to act, because the UN is irrelevant. We’ve seen to that.
Q: Did you kill Lumumba?
A: In August, 1960, Allen Dulles told Lawrence Devlin to get rid of Lumumba. Devlin sat down with Mobutu. In the September 14 military coup led by Mobutu, Lumumba was put under house arrest. Now, from this do you get the idea there was some involvement of the United States in that governmental correction? Well, as John Foster Dulles said to Ike, “the Russians are appealing to the poor people of the earth, who have always wanted to plunder the rich.” Think about it. But not too much.
Q: Why did you invade Iraq instead of North Korea?
A: Well of course Iraq has oil, while Korea has—help me out here—well, you answered your own question. We don’t need any more nuclear weapons.
Q: Why do you devalue the lives of people of color by making wars in their countries?
A: We’ve been accused of hiding the hurting, of conducting a video game war, an antiseptic war. We are not antiseptic. We have nothing against the septic peoples.
Q: Cuba?
A: Cuba is a good question. But it’s not a good answer. Cuba has a choice: self-determination or being part of our hemisphere.
Q: Isn’t the United States a failed nation?
A: Look, you may not have child care, health care, education, or jobs. But that’s because women, unions and immigrants don’t know their place.