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A compelling commentary on Bush from the Times?
No, silly wabbit, not the New York Times! It's from the Manilla Times.
This is one of the best sardonic commentaries on Bush BuzzFlash has read.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2002/apr/16/opinion/20020416opi5.html
SOUTHPAW
By Inday Espina-Varona
Georgie goes to school
The word from Washington is, that Georgie, the Texan princeling who so badly yearns to
be the man Dad wants him to be, is finally hitting the books and doing his homework.
About time. Half a dozen chiefs of states have just told Colin Powell the world is not
behooved to behave like patriotic Americans. Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat, not to
mention rich Saudis and Bahrainis, have just shown how little Georgie knows about
Abraham’s children. Even the Northern Alliance warlords have taken to killing each
other again, in full view yet of their blonde peacekeepers.
But friends will tell you Georgie was a late bloomer. So perhaps we should just say a
prayer of thanks that Georgie is slowly learning, that hi-tech war toys and chiseled
patrician features are not enough to earn genuine respect.
No, change that. Let us give thanks that Georgie is finally realizing that respect
from equals may be more rewarding than the groveling that merely masks smirks and
dirty fingers, or the condescending prattle dished out by shifty-eyed father figures
like Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney, the latter well on his way to becoming a
caricature of a simpering, vanishing Alfred Hitchcock.
Maybe one day soon a li’l ol steel magnolia will march up the White House steps, brush
aside those Secret Service hunks, sweep into the Oval Office, dump tomes on that
glistening desk, and lecture Georgie on the dangers of being such a pompous dunce.
Hopefully, one of those books will be a copy of the US Constitution, now under siege
by both terrorists and the protectors of the people. Maybe Georgie, now that he’s in
between sophomoric speeches, could be stirred into studying the real things that make
his country great — like the belief that all men (and nations) are created equal,
despite differences in color, creed, facial hair, or per capita incomes.
He just has to look in his own backyard. While he’s at it, Georgie could pull Ali
Flietcher from the White House Press Room for a review of simple English.
Spell coup, boys. Never mind the Frenchy appendage. The simple verb says, “overturn,
upset.” The longer noun means “a sudden decisive exercise of force in politics; esp:
the violent overthrow or altercation of an existing government by a small group.”
Now spell Venezuela. Spell Chavez. You remember Chavez, Georgie? PRESIDENT Hugo
Chavez, chief of state of an independent republic, and one elected in a democratic
manner, was arrested last week by a small cabal of generals and taken to an island.
While all that was underway, the same cabal installed Pedro Carmona, the leader of a
band of oligarchs, as president, and started a manhunt for Chavez’s aides and
supporters. A move presumably made to quell violence snowballed into something Latin
Americans thought lay buried in their collective nightmare – dissolution of the
National Assembly and the Supreme Court amid a vague promise of elections a year
hence.
Spell commitment. Oops. Your turn, Ali. Figures. If you can’t spell, you probably
can’t define. A commitment, gentlemen, is an agreement or pledge.
In case your advisers haven’t told you yet, Georgie, the US signed last year the new
Democracy Charter of the Organization of American States. It says, among other things,
that all members of the group would act strongly against military coups.
All OAS members condemned the Venezuelan coup and refused to recognize the new
government — all but one – the US, whose president (that’s you, Georgie) loves to
declaim on moral rectitude (no, Ali, rectum is a different word).
Do you remember what you said, Georgie?
It ain’t a coup. It ain’t a coup because he deserves it. He deserves it because I,
Georgie, don’t like his mug and his pals. And because Uncle Otto Reich says he’s bad
and you don’t argue with a man who saved Nicaragua from the Sandinistas. And because
Dad’s amigos aren’t too fond of ex-parachutists who threaten to close a third of our
oil taps. And because I know how to spell hegemony, and it means you can be an SOB but
you have to be our SOB!
Spell Venezuela again. Remember that word, Georgie. Ten years down the road, unless
you’ve succeeded in redefining archives, that word is going to be an embarrassment.
Ah, that one you got right. I told you, practice makes perfect.
http://www.manilatimes.net/national/2002/apr/16/opinion/20020416opi5.html
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