February 4, 2003
CAN'T GET THERE FROM HERE:
BLIXKRIEG (Hendrik Hertzberg, 2003-02-03, The New Yorker)The most tasteless passage in last week's State of the Union Message came about half an hour into the speech, as President Bush was enumerating his Administration's successes against Al Qaeda.Three thousand suspected terrorists have been arrested, he said. "And many others have met a different fate," he went on. "Let's put it this way: they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies." Talk about smoking guns. You could almost see the President blowing across the upturned barrel of his Colt .45. [...]
The President's swagger is the sort of thing that Europeans, especially "old" Europeans, have in mind when they grumble that our President is a callow cowboy. But the difficulty goes beyond the personality of George W. Bush. One cannot spend time in any of the other developed democracies without being struck by the damage the Administration's wise-guy unilateralism has done, not only on the issue of Iraq but also on strategically marginal topics like the Kyoto environmental agreement, family planning, and the International Criminal Court. Everyone expected this pattern to change after the attacks of September 11, 2001. It didn't.
Huh? Europeans thought that being attacked by terrorists would change our minds about Global Warming, abortion and submitting our citizens to show trials? Posted by Orrin Judd at February 4, 2003 7:07 PM
Nicholas Kristof had a particularly vapid column in the
Times on the same theme the other day. He said we
mustn't wave off the concerns of our friends the French
or the Germans.
It reminds me of a New Hampshire story. A friend of mine was driving from Portsmouth to see his brother in
Virginia. Somewhere in Massachusetts, as it was just
starting to rain, he saw a man with a dog by the side of the road, so he stopped and offered them a lift.
The man never said a word as they drove the 600 miles or so toward Norfolk, until they got outside Washington, when he asked to be let off.
The man got out and start walking off. "Hey, mister,"
said my friend, "you forgot your dog."
He replied: "That's not my dog."
Orrin, I think you misunderstood. Being attacked by terrorists was supposed to make us cower, and beg France, Germany, and Canada to protect us.
Posted by: pj at February 4, 2003 8:48 PMIt's going the other way though: Richard Perle says France 'no longer ally.'
Posted by: pj at February 4, 2003 9:47 PM3000 Americans die, but the fact that terrorists are now being dealt with to prevent more attacks like this is "tasteless."
Posted by: Henry Hanks at February 4, 2003 10:50 PMGeez, Harry. Are you trying out for Kung Fu?
Posted by: oj at February 5, 2003 12:00 AM