Yesterday's peroration by Hugo Chavez at the United Nations was historic. His referring to President Bush as the Devil is more than a sideshow, a vaudeville act or a burst of insanity. It is a precedent. No one has ever ratcheted up the hostile rhetoric to that plateau. Nobody. Not even wacky old Baroody from Saudi Arabia with the two-hour rambles. And it is never good when folks stop trying to put their best face on in public.
As for the content of his message, and that of Ahmadinejad who preceded him to the pulpit, I took my scalpel to it in my patented way in today's The American Spectator.
Ironically, perhaps, their jabbering deflected attention away from President Bush's own address. The President said a series of horrific things that are neither accurate nor sensible. He declared that the Palestinians have been undergoing the "daily humiliation of occupation", which is total bullhockey. He also said that the Palestinian vote for Hamas was not a vote for terrorism but for reforming corrupt governmental institutions. That goes well beyond naive into Jimmy Carter-like duncish self-delusion.
And so yet another well-intentioned President bites the dust in the Arab-Israeli conflict, substituting wish fulfillment for sensible analysis. Something like the syndrome noted by the Wall Street Journal some years ago of people who visit the Wailing Wall and suddenly decide they are the Messiah or Elijah.
3 comments:
I'm waiting for the Left to get whiplash over Chavez's apparent theofascist tendencies. Not only did he cross himself in public, he speaks of the Devil as an actual being, not a literary metaphor.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post has devoted above-the-fold space three days running to the burning question of whether or not George Allen's grandfather was Jewish, today devolving to what did Allen know about his Jewish grandfather and when did he know it. This town is in the grip of devils, if you ask me. Not the metaphorical kind, and they're not bunking at 1600 Penn.
You served up a very fine cut of meat over in your AmSpec essay, Jay. As an amateur restaurant critic, I must confess that I found it a bit choked by its admittedly intoxicating spices, so that consuming it was more a chore of loyalty than the unmitigated delight it what was in essence.
That the US should project its power ruthlessly but sparingly is an interesting suggestion, it has Moammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi's seal of approval as a tactic.
Perhaps Israel's government should have obliterated a well-chosen half-square mile of Lebanon instead of the scattershot approach it took. Not a war but a statement. Everyone knows they're capable of obliterating many many square miles anywhere in the Middle East.
I like the argument.
Bin Ladin, it should be noted, is in the statement business himself.
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