Until you laugh at plastic fish, Bush will be a mystery

Times (UK) ^ | May 25, 2002 | Ben MacIntyre

[Nea Wood]

Bush himself once told me an anecdote about an occasion when, on holiday in Scotland as a teenager, he had been mistaken for a Scottish shepherd boy by a coachload of American tourists. This was a notion he found utterly hilarious.

I guess I share Bush's sense of humor, because I find this hilarious, too! I wonder if the tour guide pointed him out to the tourists, saying, "Look! A typical native shepherd boy!" LOL I can picture the tourists leaning out the windows of the bus, taking pictures of a boy who's really from Texas.

[rdavis84]

I wonder if French women still braid their armpit hair?

[Dan from Michigan]

Bush was delighted to be presented with a “Billy Bass

Take me to the river.....drop me in da water.
"Don't worry.....be happy."

[Dales]

This is the kind of blunt reduction that reassures Americans in the Midwest as much as it enrages Parisians on the Left Bank.

My mom always used to say- "the truth hurts".

Especially for those living in a socialist fantasyland.

[alithia]

Actually,the way Kennedy said it translated into "I am a poundcake",and the Germans still crack up at it today

[Dan from Michigan]

Bwahhahaha. Those things are awesome.

[SuziQ]

“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.

Hmmm...methinks they may not be so enraged at our President just after the first Islamic terrorist blows himself up on the Champs Elysees or in the Louvre. Maybe then they won't think of him as a bumbling Texan but a man who is working to get rid of as many of the terrorists as he possibly can!

[Shermy]

"the simple, sometimes simplistic, framing of the global issues"

A Euro specialty.

[okie01]

"The French expect their ruler to behave like a king and French kings have always had their Madame du Pompadours."

While our President Clinton had his Monica Lewinski.

Give the French some credit.

[RightOnGOP]

Wow, to be reviled by the French is to be admired in our own country. The French are so pretentious, for no reasons at all. When traveling there I could not wait to get home; mind you, I enjoyed the history, artifacts, country's beauty, etc. (Most)Women walk the streets of Paris in high heels, slaves to "high fashion", but ultimate slaves to back injuries in their old age. Men and women avoid looking you in the eye, eliminating most eye contact. Rarely does anyone smile. Maybe the decade/centuries of socialism have gotten to them, and if they have always been this way, thank God we (our ancestors) escaped a few hundred years ago to the land of the free and the brave. And now that I think about it, they have yet to discover the full shower concept. Any country with substandard plumbing, but hundreds of years of history, doesn't offer much to me. Most of all, travelling there to Paris made me proud to be American, and as a result of this article, proud of our W!

[maxter]

And the underestimating continues.

[hinckley buzzard]

Refusal (or inability ) to temper his Americanness.

And so Benny-boy reveals himself at base to be just one more insipid Euro-jerkoff who, in the end, doesn't get it-- any more than those syphilitic Left Bank whores we uncivilized cowboys apparently enrage.

[lsee]

Bill Clinton was the foreign tourist par excellence, with a chameleon knack for taking on the colour of his surroundings.

A useful talent when you tend to hang out in cesspools....

[Anamensis]

I still just can't get over how many old Eurohags dye their hair bright red. And in their 40s and 50s, too. And they have the nerve to make fun of cowboy boots. Come ON! Isabel Adjani is the only thing they've produced that I care to look at.

[Mr. Jeeves]

When traveling there I could not wait to get home; mind you, I enjoyed the history, artifacts, country's beauty, etc. (Most)Women walk the streets of Paris in high heels, slaves to "high fashion", but ultimate slaves to back injuries in their old age. Men and women avoid looking you in the eye, eliminating most eye contact. Rarely does anyone smile. Maybe the decade/centuries of socialism have gotten to them, and if they have always been this way, thank God we (our ancestors) escaped a few hundred years ago to the land of the free and the brave.

You know, speaking as a native, this descripton applies almost perfectly to San Francisco, too.

[mhking]

Clinton was spiritually part European, but Bush’s popularity at home, and his unpopularity in much of Europe, lies partly in his refusal (or inability) to temper his Americanness.

Here is the main problem of the EuroTrash in a nutshell: Clinton broke his neck to kiss up to them, while GW won't. And because GW won't, the EuroTrash considers him the epitome of the "Ugly American" that they loathe.

[mountaineer]

the occasion when he attended a funeral for the victims of a gun massacre and spent the entire time waggling his eyebrows at the press

I trust our effete writer has some facts to back up this allegation. Chances are Bush was blinking, trying not to shed a tear, and this nitwit took it as "waggling his eyebrows." The Eurotrash elitists will see what they want to see. Some day, perhaps, they'll see a hijacked airplane full of their citizens plowing into one of their national landmarks. Maybe then they'll understand.

[GraniteStateConservative]

I thought you'd like to see this.

[Fintan]

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.

Or, it's entirely possible the Europeans are snobbish ingrates, and, well, assholes.

[Hildy]

That reminds me of when I was a teenager. As many middle-class, Jewish girls do, I went to live on a kibbutz in Israel. My job was working in a ceramics factory that the Kibbutz ran. It was a rather large one, and tours would come in to visit. One day, a large lady from the U.S. was touring the facility and pointed at me, explaining to her children that I was the typical Israeli teenage girl. Of course, I couldn't even speak Hebrew! It was very funny to hear something like that.