..."Everyone in Europe is rubbing their eyes as this strange laconic creature with miniaturized eyes gads about alternating strange promises with stranger threats," observed one European analyst.
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NYTimes 6 May, 2001
LIBERTIES
Mexico Likes Us!
By MAUREEN DOWD
Expanded Coverage Op-Ed Columns Archive
WASHINGTON. W. was hanging out at the White House with the Yankees on Friday, his face aglow as he was presented with a team ball and a signed pinstriped jersey by Roger Clemens, Paul O'Neill and Mariano Rivera.
"Mucho gusto!" he told Mariano.
The president also gave a trophy to the Air Force Academy football team, prepared for the debut of his T-ball league and hosted a Cinco de Mayo festival on the South Lawn.
"Mi Casa Blanca es su Casa Blanca," El Presidente Jorge told the crowd, before flying off to Camp David at 3:30 p.m.
Some days, it's fun to be the boy toy of the military-industrial complex.
As the president fiddled, I burned.
Doesn't W. realize that EVERYBODY in the world HATES us?
Not Mexico. Maybe not Monaco. But EVERYBODY ELSE! Even the Swedes can't stand us, for Pete's sake.
Gerhard Schröder thinks that he and W. had no communication when they met, and that W. had trouble remembering his name. Tony Blair has to call Bill Clinton to find a sympathetic ear. And how many times can President Bush trot out Vicente Fox?
During the campaign, W. tried to soothe public doubts about the deep dry well of his foreign policy knowledge. He promised we would feel secure with an array of veterans Colin, Condi and Cheney.
So why, only three months in, is America roiled by all these bristly spats around the globe? We couldn't be playing the bully boy with a heavier hand if Pat Buchanan had won.
After complaining that Clinton foreign policy was erratic and impulsive, the Bush team turned out to be erratic and impulsive. The Bushies wanted to be more muscular, but have succeeded only in being more high-handed, infuriating allies and rivals with moves both unilateral and pointless.
Fed up with America's "my way or the highway" attitude on global warming, the missile defense shield, AIDS medication for the poor and treaties, the Europeans gleefully went along in slapping the U.S., booting us out of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights for the first time since its inception in 1947.
The U.S. was cast out while Sudan, with its slaughtering and slavery, remains in, as well as Togo, which traffics in child slaves, and Pakistan, which has a military dictator (identified by W. only as "General . . . General" in his campaign pop quiz). France won 52 votes to our 29. When you are deemed snootier than the French, you know you're in trouble.
The Bushies were needlessly humiliated in the Kabuki theater of the U.N., where the outcome of a vote should never be a surprise, because they weren't paying attention. They were too busy brandishing their trompe l'oeil missile shield to worry about shielding real people in real trouble. They were too busy trying to turn Alaska into a giant oil rig and give more riches to the rich.
At a Georgetown cocktail party last week, Robert McNamara, the mastermind behind our most despicable Asian policy, told other guests W. had botched relations with Beijing so badly we could end up at war with China in the next decade. He should know.
The Bushies try to act tough but keep slipping on banana peels. After Rummy's top aide at the Pentagon issued a cold-warlike memo ordering all contacts between our military and the Chinese armed forces to stop, the White House had it revoked.
The world moved on between Bush 41 and Bush 43, but maybe they missed it in Texas. A decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, W. is in a time warp, writing a blank check for a weapons system that Rummy says doesn't have to work.
"Everyone in Europe is rubbing their eyes as this strange laconic creature with miniaturized eyes gads about alternating strange promises with stranger threats," observed one European analyst.
We have never succeeded in shooting down an intercontinental missile. At least when Ronald Reagan pushed his faux shield, it was a way to get the Soviets to spend themselves into oblivion. But there is no Soviet Union now, and Putin is broke. The military-industrial complex cannot justify its flamboyant weapons without the existence of flamboyant enemies.
It was bad enough when President Clinton rewarded his contributors with the Lincoln Bedroom. But President Bush is rewarding his contributors with the Pentagon. (Mi Pentagono es su Pentagono.)
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