Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Tony! Tony! Tony!

For the love of Pete, you would think that a guy like Tony Bennett, who’s been singing for a living since Lincoln was in third grade, would know how to promote a new album. 

But nooooooo!  The octogenarian balladeer went on Howard Stern’s show last week and made some goofy remarks about our recent American history:

From the New York Daily News:
In a bizarre interview with shock jock Stern, legendary singer Tony Bennett proclaimed "we caused" the 9/11 attacks and said former President George W. Bush admitted to him the Iraq war was a mistake.
"They flew the plane in, but we caused it," the 85-year-old crooner told Stern on his Sirius Radio show Monday night. "We were bombing them, and they told us to stop."
Bennett's controversial answer came after Stern asked the World War II vet how the U.S. should deal with the terrorists responsible for toppling the twin towers.
"Who are the terrorists?" Bennett said, according to ABC News. "Are we the terrorists, or are they the terrorists? Two wrongs don't make a right."
Bennett went on to describe a night in 2005 when he claims then-President Bush made a frank admission to him about the war in Iraq.
The two were at an event at the Kennedy Center honoring Bennett.
"He told me personally that night that, he said, 'I think I made a mistake,' " said Bennett, who was appearing on the Stern show to promote his new album, "Duets II."
Bennett said he believed that the President made this revelation because "he had a special liking to me."
Bennett said he agreed with that assessment.
"To start a war in Iraq was a tremendous, tremendous mistake internationally," he said.
A Bush spokesman slammed Bennett's account as "flatly wrong."
"President Bush has always felt, and consistently expressed, that America is safer without Saddam Hussein in power," spokesman Freddy Ford said.
"He has never said the decision to liberate Iraq was a mistake to Mr. Bennett or to anyone.”

I hold no particular brief for Gee W B, but even I will give him this: even if he thought he had made a mistake, he would not go around discussing it with Tony Bennett. 

Willie Nelson, sure, but not Tony Bennett.




 

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