Long gone are the days when a visiting American administration would be greeted on the World stage by shoes and tomatoes being lobbed at their heads.
Happy days, i still recall with fondness the sight of George W Bush cowering under a desk as a size 8 thundered against the wall behind him but alas, those days are gone and the parts that make up the American administration are now looked upon with respect and admiration.
Obviously nobody told the demonstrators who welcomed Hillary Clinton to Egypt by showering her car with tomatoes, shoes and water bottles while chanting 'Monica, Monica'.
Such is the change in the American view of the Middle East that the US secretary of state provided a pleasant focal point for anti-American demonstrations by opening an American consulate in Alexandria which was quickly attacked by local citizens chanting anti-American slogans.
She also, quite decently, stayed overnight in a hotel which provided a perfect site for the demonstrators to surrounded her hotel on Saturday night banging drums and burning American flags.
We may not have a George or a Rumsfeld bungling around the region anymore but as long as there is a representative of the American Government willing to turn up in the Middle East and try to bluster that they are that countries friends, there will always be a shoe winging it's way through the air towards them.
5 comments:
i don't recall W cowering. I remember him rather adeptly avoiding the shoe and standing and looking the fellow in the eye.
q
i don't know that the usa has had a coward as president (at least not in my lifetime). if we have, the candidates in my mind are richard nixon and bill clinton, and personally i think clinton actually has a sense of valor...
q
From my memory of reading about Nixon years ago, I think I recall him actively seeking a more active posting during WW2... I don't think he saw any action, but he easily could have done. Therefore his actions were in sharp contrast to the chicken-hawk likes of Dick ('other priorities') Cheney and George W ('defender of Houston from the Vietcong') Bush...
common cheezy, you don't like bush, got it, but bush did more military service than lbj or clinton - both of whom prosecuted and or escalated war...
old bush was a combat bomber pilot
jimmy carter was in a nuclear sub (arguably the safest place to be).
i think reagan was a ground soldier but don't know that, he did have a hand in the grenda thing right
i don't think ford served, but he didn't pursue war
i did not know nixon served, raises him a notch in my mind. he is already my number 1 president of all time (if not for him i would have been called in the next draft and visited vietnam - ugggh).
ike had a horrible responsibilty but never came within a mile of a german.
jfk is a naval hero
fdr did not serve but, like dick cheney, advocated war (fdr is often accused of knowing that pearl harbor was going to be attacked).
truman did not serve but launched the atomic bombs...
Yeah, Nixon went to the South Pacific, and at the time it looked like the Japanese were going to be able to control the entire Pacific basin.
I actually find old Tricky Dick one of the most fascinating of Presidents, (obvious) flaws and all...
Interesting info, all of that. Did you know that George HW Bush's Grumman Avenger is kept at Duxford in Cambridgeshire England... From his own experiences he was certainly aware of how dangerous war could be... one of the reasons why he didn't mind using his influence to spare his young lad, no doubt.
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