Wednesday, December 01, 2004
as arrogant as we wanna be
Bu$h condemns "cultural condescension" in the Middle East...but uses it on Canadians? In Nova Scotia today, Bush apparently decided that 3 years was a long enough to wait before thanking Canadians for their kindness to stranded Americans on 9/11/01. This struck me as absurd for several reasons.
First of all, perhaps Barbara never talked with her sons about the appropriate time frame for thank yous, but 3 years certainly seems excessive.
Second, it smells to me like another administrative use of the tragedy of 9/11 to gain political points with an ally that we're fonding of walking all over whenever it suits us.
Third, for the prez to tote Canadians' nice treatment of Americans on 9/11 seems pretty damn condescending. What - did he think they would just leave stranded Americans to sit on the curbs and wait for the planes to start running again to whisk them away from a land of meanies? Of course they helped, just as we would have helped them.
From what I can tell, Bush visited Canada primarily to try to get more money out of them for Iraq, and maybe to try to convince sceptical Canadians that he's a good guy. When that didn't go as he had hoped, he refused to give any American concessions regarding trade disputes about lumber, cattle, and other issues.
Maybe Air Force One should have the slogan "as arrogant as we wanna be" painted on the side. Just in case there was any doubt of the prez's modus operandi.
Some people were advocating for Bu$h to be indicted for war crimes, but seeing as how America is the unelected policeman of the world, that probably is unlikely to happen. Heck, you want us to follow international laws? Just try and make us...
¶ 10:21 AM
Bu$h condemns "cultural condescension" in the Middle East...but uses it on Canadians? In Nova Scotia today, Bush apparently decided that 3 years was a long enough to wait before thanking Canadians for their kindness to stranded Americans on 9/11/01. This struck me as absurd for several reasons.
First of all, perhaps Barbara never talked with her sons about the appropriate time frame for thank yous, but 3 years certainly seems excessive.
Second, it smells to me like another administrative use of the tragedy of 9/11 to gain political points with an ally that we're fonding of walking all over whenever it suits us.
Third, for the prez to tote Canadians' nice treatment of Americans on 9/11 seems pretty damn condescending. What - did he think they would just leave stranded Americans to sit on the curbs and wait for the planes to start running again to whisk them away from a land of meanies? Of course they helped, just as we would have helped them.
From what I can tell, Bush visited Canada primarily to try to get more money out of them for Iraq, and maybe to try to convince sceptical Canadians that he's a good guy. When that didn't go as he had hoped, he refused to give any American concessions regarding trade disputes about lumber, cattle, and other issues.
Maybe Air Force One should have the slogan "as arrogant as we wanna be" painted on the side. Just in case there was any doubt of the prez's modus operandi.
Some people were advocating for Bu$h to be indicted for war crimes, but seeing as how America is the unelected policeman of the world, that probably is unlikely to happen. Heck, you want us to follow international laws? Just try and make us...
¶ 10:21 AM
