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Sunday, Nov 16, 2003
Safire the Satirist
Things run at a different pace here in Santa Cruz County, where I spend many a weekend. So Safire's column of November 10th was published just today. I knew I was in for a treat with the opening sentence.
With a strong sense of history, George Bush last week made the case for "a forward strategy" of idealism in American foreign policy."Strong sense of history"? Are you a raving idiot Mr. Safire, or have you crossed over into the smartass camp? You're talking about a drunken frat boy who squeaked through his bachelors' in history with a C average, and who somehow thought the word "crusade" was an appropriate description of our response to 9/11.
Safire's unintended irony was an appropriate introduction to the unintended irony of Bush's speech, which the Santa Cruz Sentinel ran in full. The Sentinel's position, stripped of it's careful editorial page language is "we're printing this speech because we need to pay close attention to these bastards."
To those not paying close attention to history, Bush's recitation of the track record of US support for democracy across the globe is something of which to be proud. If only this imaginary history were true. While the US did good things for democracy in Europe and Japan, to cite Latin America democracy in the win column for the US is inane. Just how deep was Junior's drunken stupor at Yale? Bush did make vague remarks about the mistakes of "western" powers in the Middle East, but carefully sidestepped the details of US skullduggery.
How could the Shrub criticize the government of Iran, which, by the way, has more elements of democracy than many so-called allies, without a penitent admission of the CIA's installation of a dictator in 1953? Does he think the American public are completely out of touch with their own history? Well, if he did, he wouldn't be half wrong.
Saturday, Nov 15, 2003
The Immutable Resolve of Dubya
previous in series of Republican bumper stickers
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