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Until you laugh at plastic fish, Bush will be a mystery
Times (UK) ^
| May 25, 2002
| Ben MacIntyre
Posted on 05/24/2002 5:50:24 PM PDT by Clive
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"'Saddam Hussein is a dangerous man who gasses his own people,' said the President in Berlin. This is the kind of blunt reduction that reassures Americans in the Midwest as much as it enrages Parisians on the Left Bank." Perhaps had there been more of that kind of "blunt reduction" in Europe when Hitler was "gassing his own people" Germans might have been spared the destruction of their cities and Frenchmen might have been spared the choice of living with the Gestapo or living with the Milice.
1
posted on
05/24/2002 5:50:25 PM PDT
by
Clive
To: Clive
The French should thank their lucky stars fro American cowboys and sing Happy Trails to You on a nightly basis.
Or in a nutshell, the French suck.
2
posted on
05/24/2002 5:56:50 PM PDT
by
jwalsh07
To: Clive
Someone needs to tell the Europeans that Americans aren't fooled by someone who is a smooth talker (like Clinton) but by a man who "Walks the walk" and doesn't just "talk the talk".
President Bush is a man of substance,..obviously the majority of Europeans are shallow if they don't "get it".
To: Clive
Enraging parisians is good sport. Hey Paris, we won't bail you out next time. You're not worth it.
4
posted on
05/24/2002 6:07:43 PM PDT
by
DemoSmear
To: Clive
Now we know why Ben MacIntyre is the Leader of the Free World and George W. Bush is ... wait a minute ...
To: Clive
Clinton was nothing but pure, Grade-A, white trash! Reagan, Bush, and Bush were pure class. Nothing Europeans, American liberals, and the Clintons would know one whit about.
To: Clive
American sense of humour isn't all that hard to decode. We laugh at the French; those singing, plastic Europeans, for example.
regards
7
posted on
05/24/2002 6:10:37 PM PDT
by
okiedust
To: Clive
That's a singing mechanical rubberized fish you stupid Euro-Trash a$$wipers! Hey, can ANY of your morons fly a jet? Bush can! We saved your country in WWII! So shutup! PS - Use some soap for a change! "
To: Clive
The folksy, back-slapping humour; the preference for informal groups over public performances; the simple, sometimes simplistic, framing of the global issues. These qualities partly explain why Bush enjoys such high approval ratings in the US, while in Europe he so often provokes bemusement, embarrassment or scorn. I'd rather be an American redneck than a French prissy-boy any day of the week. Like we need some fancy-boy prancing around in his elf shoes to tell us what's what.
The Euro-trash like to pretend they're all sophisticated when, in actuality, they behave like zoo apes and have the intelligence and integrity of your average crack whore.
To: Marylander
I should have said Jaques Chirac. Never mind.
To: Clive
Jacques Chirac would open a vein rather than been seen with a singing plastic fish.Maybe, but this author's head of state (Queen Elizabeth) received one of these fish as a Christmas present (not from W, I think), and she thought it was hilarious - showed it to everyone. When I lived in Britain, I could not get over how tawdry the place seemed, how rude the people were, and how infantile the humor. Every year there is a major charity drive (pushed by newspapers) where people are expected to go around wearing clown noses as a sign of support. That makes "Billy Bass" seem positively profound.
To: isthisnickcool
To: Vets_Husband_and_Wife
Sadly, enough of us were fooled by the smooth-talking Clinton... twice... to our eternal shame.
To: Clive
"Jacques Chirac would open a vein rather than been seen with a singing plastic fish."
I'm sure he would. But the irony in this article from the "Times (UK) is that these plastic fish were all the rage in London only a few months ago. Even FoxNews thought the British fascination with these oddly amusing.
To: Clive
I lived in Europe for three years. Let there be no doubt, the average European has great admiration for the American style which is less plastic than the European put-on. The European elites find it unsettling that they can't quite get over themselves. The French are just pissed that their "revolution" - about the same time as ours, is a flop.
To: Clive
Interesting observation. Different cultures expect their rulers to act in different ways and will forgive different vices. The French expect their ruler to behave like a king and French kings have always had their Madame du Pompadours.
To: Clive
It's times like these I'm glad I don't speak French
You had to be there
To: Clive
Translation: Don't worry, fellow Europeans: Americans may be the only country on earth that is a true superpower, we may have to humiliate ourselves routinely asking them for help, and it may be that people pass through our country with barely a glance around them in their rush to get to America... but we are SOPHISTICATED. We can roll our own cigarettes. We can sneer in all four directions at once. They wear cowboy boots without irony, but our 40 year old women dye their hair red without irony, and that takes WAY more sangfroid. Heck, we can say "sangfroid"! We are cool because... well... because we refuse to be respectful of success or morals! That's why. So really, we're better than they are.
To: 2sheep; Prodigal Daughter; babylonian; Jeremiah Jr
Bush will be a mysteryDoes the same come to mind for you also?
2 Thessalonians 2:7 For the mystery of iniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he be taken out of the way.
Bush holds fast to support of Palestinian state
To: Clive
"Bush offends French sensibilities in a country where the President is expected to be aloof, cerebral, grave, private, formal and intensely serious." And....completely irrelevant.
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