“Ich bin ein Berliner!” it was not.
Of course Europeans aren’t listening to Geo. w. Bsh., any more than those of us in this country. And like everyone else, they are just hoping he will quietly retire before blowing up the entire planet.
Thanks to w., the folks at Washington PostGlobal are debating whether we are on the verge of World War III.
Never much attuned to the Old Continent, Bush makes a habit of astounding Europeans with his proud ignorance of their ways, customs, and generally held beliefs.
There was a time (somewhere about 1960) when an American president carried messages of hope, freedom and liberty during visits abroad.
Now we have one that talks about them through a prism of death and destruction, which doesn’t sound the same.
James Gerstenag of the “Los Angeles Times” just did a piece entitled,“Bush backs missile defense” in which w. said from Washington that he backs missile defense...for Europe.
Dan Froomkin’s “White House Briefing” delves into some of Bush’s inaccuracies. Especially the claim that MISSILE DEFENSE ACTUALLY WORKS.
But the administration has never been bothered with such niceties as research and evidence.
More importantly, Bsh. sayeth, Europe would be vulnerable to attack from Iran, which, of course, is allied with a number of those same supposedly vulnerable states.
“The need for missile defense in Europe is real and I believe it’s urgent,” Bush said in a speech to National Defense University, whatever the hell that is.
Also urgent is the need for more money to finance the Iraq boondoggle. the scribe doesn’t remember when it was Bush squeezed the American people for an earlier $147.5 billion, but it doesn’t seem long ago. And that was just a fraction of the true cost of war as demonstrated by our favorite cost-of-war ticker, compliments of the National Priorities Project.
We are told any opposition to this expense, a small portion of which would have helped end the California firestorm, will be a Betraeus, er um, Petrayal of our troops.
Said the president: “I know some in Congress are against the war. But they ought to make sure our troops have what it takes to succeed.”
Here we go again. Sign sealed delivered it’s his, because in spite of the cliff he’s leading the Republican Party over, GOPers have no problem, ideologically, with backing Bsh., on children’s health care or the war, for which they are THE OFFICIAL PARTY.
The War Party.
That’s right Americans, Europeans, Antarticans, when w. goes there will be a prick to take his place.
Right now that is looking like Rudy Giuliani who thinks that a new war with Iran is a great idea, much as the administration does.
If you want to read some of their reasons, you can click on an earlier edition of “White House Briefing” or TiVo yourself back to those heady days prior to the Iraq invasion, because they are, brazenly, the same pack of lies.
In “Giuliani’s War” Richard Cohen of the “Washington Post” discusses one of Rudy G.’s characteristic moments when he told a New Yorker who disagreed with his plan to make ferrets illegal as pets that, “There is something deranged about you.”
Ann Coulter’s got to be thrilled.
Cohen, who has the patience to actually sit through the Republican presidential debates, says Giuliani is “treating Iran as a nation of ferret owners” [that’s good] by threatening to strike that country militarily if it develops nuclear weapons.
It was Giuliani said, “not a threat, but a promise,” according to Cohen who added that, “The other Republican candidates do not, for the most part, disagree.”
Of course they don’t.
Which brings up a problem highwayscribery first identified in “Giuliani and the Politics of Defeat,” as response to a comment by Hizzoner who claimed we can never go back to life the way it was before 9/11.
The GOP always points to the peacenik strain laced through the Democratic Party as something defeatist. Only those who want to send boys and girls over as IED fodder are lovers of America.
But as the scribe noted in that post, “So who is defeatist? Don’t tell the highway scribe he will be removing his shoes before boarding planes the rest of his life...Fix the problem.” etc.
War, war and war. That’s what they have to offer and highwayscribery hopes you’re in the weapons dealing business because otherwise your just another citizen whose lost their civil rights in a declining country.
Meanwhile, John McCain seems to have revived his presidential prospects with a commercial mocking Hillary Clinton’s support of a Woodstock Museum in New York.
McCain said at a recent debate that he was “sure it was a cultural and pharmaceutical event” and then used the recording of his big laugh-line in the commercial as voice over to images from that great day in American history. “I was tied up at the time.”
Oh well good for you. As the scribe sees it those dancing people were upset you and others were over there killing and being killed; they were leading by example, showing how life should be lived with joy and in community rather than under the perpetual rain cloud the Republicans promise.
You have to love the Republican way. Your chances of getting into the true club (not the one that merely votes for it) are pretty slim, but they’ll mock you for being an outsider every chance they get.
With all the squalor and misery, with the perpetual fear, the environmental degradation and enmity between peoples all over the world, they have maintained throughout the years a smug smirk reserved for those who would dance and preach peace.
For the Party Party.
It’s worth noting the Woodstock museum funding Clinton voted for was $1 million.
Last time the scribe looked, the Iraq war, which McCain is dead set against ending, had cost $463 billion, but that was half an hour ago.
And now a little something about Woodstock...
the highway scribe did not make it to the actual festival, although even at the age of 10 its tremors shook him from a distance.
A year later, his mom took the scribe, his sister Rosemary, and baby brother Bradley, up to Woodstock. It was near the place where they made Corning Wear, which mothers cooked their casseroles in back then.
The town was overrun by long-hairs whom, as has been the case across urban American in ensuing years, had done much to improve it with color, creativity, art, and vibrance. the scribe bought a patch for his jeans that said “LSD” designed in the same graphic style as the STP Oil label, which seems to have disappeared from the commercial scene.
At one point in our incense-inspired walk through the leafy burg, we stopped to watch a stream flow under a small wooden bridge. We were approached by a young man with a beard that made him appear less young to us. Our mother was elsewhere, but this was in a time before amber alerts.
UnAmerican, he talked nothing about himself, but patiently asked questions of us and recorded the answers in a notebook. He assured us that we were very interesting and that he should know, because that is what he was dedicated to doing: listening to people and recording their stories. He left with a smile shortly thereafter. We were never abducted or molested.
the highway scribe made a career out of his shining example.
Years later, the scribe and friends used to go to a nearby independent theater to see the Woodstock movie, which you may not know, was edited by Martin Scorcese. The music, of course, is astounding, but what used to excite the crowd most were the words of an old-timer on a porch who spoke to the film makers.
The exact words escape now, but to paraphrase he said that people of the rural farm town did not quite know what to think when all these scruffy items waltzed in singing, dancing and drinking, but that as the days wore on, it seemed to him their behavior was unimpeachable, that their example was one that might serve the whole world, that they’d be welcome back any time they saw fit to return, which he hoped would be soon, and that he himself would never forget how wonderful they were.
In today’s world, that’s worth $1 million and a museum.
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