This is just RICH! Another headline! Bush and his Iranian nemisis to address the U.N. on the same day. Bush determined to avoid Ahmadinejad in the hallway! AND HOW!
Bush’s people don’t want to make an issue of the two meeting, although if Ahmadinejad approaches, “nobody’s going to body-block” him. Talk about giving diplomacy a chance.
Of the man who leads Iran, the nation which has been the demon of Bush’s preoccupation and the focus of Bush’s address to the General Assembly, Bush aids don’t want to accord Ahmadinejad so much importance. “We’re talking about the former mayor of Tehran here.”
Really. And Bush is what? A former what?
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was among the former Revolutionary Guard student leaders who seized the American embassy in Tehran and precipitated the fall of the Shah and the end of US influence in Persia.
Bush was what? What? Oil man? Sports team owner? Alcoholic until he was 40? Maybe drinks still? Draft dodger of the blue-blood sort, dodged even his Reservist duty? Cocaine dealer in college, busted and sentenced to community service when others served long prison sentences? What? He won’t deign to meet with a former mayor of Tehran?
Ahmadinejad may be mouthing off too much for everyone’s comfort, but he has also singlehandedly brought the question of Israel’s legitimacy in the Middle East back to the discussion of a resolution in Palestine.
Ahmadinejad made minced meat of Mike Wallace in his CBS interview, in spite of the fact that 60-Minutes had control of the editing. I’m reluctant to mention Ahmadinejad and Saddam Hussein in the same sentence, but the Iranian president’s interview reminded me of Saddam’s talk with Dan Rather. The soon to be toppled dictator ran circles around our boy Dan. One rarely sees presidents measured up against journalists. Both are bright, but the brilliance required of a self-made statesman becomes pretty self evidence.
Now let’s talk about George Bush. Bush can’t even be interviewed by an informal commission without being accompanied by Dick Cheney. The vice-president’s nickname in CIA circles is “Edgar.” The best guess is that Edgar is a reference to Edgar Bergen, father of Candice Bergen and beloved ventriloquist to his wooden chum Charley McCarthy. Would Bush be the dummy “Charley?” Is that too much of a stretch?
Bush can’t handle a debate without an electronic prompter, nor a speech without someone feeding him his lines. That’s why he pauses between phrases. We know the routine from weddings: repeat after me: to have and to hold, to have and to hold, till death do us part, till death do us part, amen, amen. Bush can’t even handle an audience that isn’t vetted of just the hardcore ditto-heads.
White house officials are saying it is Ahmadinejad who is eager to avoid coming face to face with Bush. He’d come out at a disadvantage they say “because he’s shorter than Bush.” Really now? Shorter than Bush? I don’t even believe that.
The most interesting contrast has been between Hugo Chavez and the devil, as he has called Bush. Said Dubya smelled of sulfur even.
And even more interesting in Chavez’s speech was his charac`terization of the United Nations as being nothing more than a tool of the US and the other imperialist countries. And that contrasts quite sharply with US Right Wing opinion that has traditionally hated the UN, even as the US government has used that organization against other nations’ interests. Haiti has this Pentagon brigade called the UN occupying their country on behalf of Bush right now, as just one of a multitude of examples of how the Pentagon has used the UN around the world, and continues to do so.
Chavez called for a dismantling of the current imperialst controlled structure of the UN, and a reconstitution as a true international body. One that would be democratic in nature, and not controlled by the bigger and wealthier powers. RIGHT ON, Hugo!