Our friend Mr. Elliott will be happy to note that this column is not one that I considered to be a suitable venue for my trademark wordplay.
Regrettably I was impelled to spank the President. In private conversation, he uses a sort of prophetic language that has a legitimate context in human affairs. Yet he is careful not to use it on the national stage. Nobody could imagine him standing up and saying at a press conference or a stump speech (even in a church) that God told him to go into Afghanistan or Iraq - even if he believes in his heart that this is the case.
Then how is it smart or appropriate to tell it to the Palestinian "leaders"?
4 comments:
What you reveal is that you're sufficiently a cretin to imagine that a translation to English, from Arabic, of the self-interested recollections by the leaders of a Palestinian faction, of a discussion in English translated to Arabic, of a meeting some months in the past, can be trusted to the extent that you can consider it "smart" or "appropriate" to reprove the President unconditionally.
Not to mention that your suggestion that you were "impelled ... to spank the President" calls to mind the proverbial ant making love to the elephant.
Every one of those Palestinian leaders speaks perfect English, as you can see and hear for yourself if you watch the BBC documentary.
There is no question that Palestinians have a culture of lying. I, however, believe this story for 4 reasons of varying degrees of persuasiveness.
1. I know from my own sources that he talks this way about the Israeli-Palestinian situation in private.
2. It is not really in the Palestinians' interest to undermine the credibility of the man they are counting on to deliver their state. They only lie to benefit themselves.
3. The language of "George, go and fight those terrorists..." and "George, go and end the tyranny..." is pitch perfect. It lends great verisimilitude to their claim.
4. Nabil Shaath made the point that he told it to "all of us". Liars usually describe one-on-one conversations rather than group presentations.
That such an inarticulate and underqualified man should have his party's nomination and then the presidency itself fall at his feet (courtesy of the inexplicable self-destruction of a shoo-in sitting vice president) to me speaks of a divine origin and purpose, even less likely than the abundance and usefulness of oil.
However, there's a big difference between believing one detects a divine hand in things and hearing divine voices. It is said the relatively non-religious Reagan felt he was Called to defeat the Soviets. Our Palestinian friends could easily have misapprehended Bush as quoting God directly, if at all.
Post a Comment