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

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

[SevenofNine]

Excuse me Frenchy Hey next time we let any Hostile Power take you over like NAZI GERMANY Why we bail their a*** out of WW2 I don't know That one of mystery of the universe USA bailing out France England I understand Even Germany okay that cool FRANCE Hey Euro Reporter Dubya spent some time in NYC HELLO His dad was CIA director at that time Remember Tricky Dicky tapes George Bush Sr was complaining the kids never like NYC It so closed in they rather be back in Texas

[woofie]

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

Is that why Clinton fit in?

[harpo11]

Who gives a flying darn what the heck those Frenchmen say about our distinguished President expecially when so many brave young and hearty Americans bleed and died as they fought to valiently to free these ungrateful slobs. My Mom's Aunt lost two of her beloved young sons age 19 and 20 somewhere over France and to this day their bodies have not been found and brought home.

Frenchmen, have some deep sincere respect for our President and the courageous men and women of our country.

[Polybius]

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

Apparently, Queen Elizabeth was quite amused.

'Singing' Queen Elizabeth at Center of Fishy Tale

Reuters | October 26, 2000

Britain's Queen Elizabeth has been entertaining guests at her Balmoral estate in Scotland with renditions of ``Don't Worry Be Happy'' in a duet with a rubber singing fish, Britain's Sun tabloid said on Thursday.

The monarch has even mounted the grotesque ``Billy Bass'' singing fish toy -- which mounted on a wooden plaque, looks like an angler's trophy -- on her grand piano, the paper said.

Buckingham Palace could not confirm the bizarre report, but it stopped short of ruling it out altogether.

"The Queen may have a singing fish, but more than that I couldn't say,'' a Buckingham Palace spokesman told Reuters.

The Sun said the Queen was given the toy by another member of the royal family and bursts out laughing every time it is switched on and starts to twitch and croon.

"The Queen thinks Billy's a scream -- he's always on her piano,'' a Balmoral insider told the paper. ``It's so funny to see all these mounted deers' heads and stuffed animals hanging on the walls of this grand room.''

"And there in the middle of it all is the Queen and a fish mounted on a plaque singing 'Don't Worry Be Happy','' the source added.

[TADSLOS]

“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.

Dear Mr. President,

Forget about Europe, they are a lost cause and must come to a self realization about who the enemy is or suffer their own dire consequences.

Please come back home immediately and lead our nation to victory from the scourge of terrorists. Your friends are few and far between over there and time is running out. Momentum is everything and we are on the verge of losing it. It's time to pull out all the stops. God Bless Texas and God Bless America.

Your neighbor down the road apiece,

TADSLOS

[Kermit]

When I was in Germany, I had American tourists pull out their German phrasebooks to ask me directions. After I answered them in English, they praised me for my English knowledge. I thought that was hilarious.

Then there was the lady in the supermarket asking for prunes and when the clerk didn't understand, just said it louder.

[another cricket]

Actually this comes more to mind.

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness I Tim. 3:16

a.cricket

[nutmeg]

bump

[Seeking the truth]

It was a "jelly donut" that JFK called himself.

[wimpycat]

I've come to the conclusion that the Europeans can't be trusted to make any serious decisions. They started WWI, lost an entire generation of young men, then basically raped the Germans with the Treaty of Versailles, which set the stage for WWII. Another legacy from WWI was the arbitrary carving up of the Ottoman Empire, which largely contributed to the problems in the Middle East today, and also the arbitrary carving up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, which largely contributed to the problems in the Balkans today. They were so friggin' eager to go to the first World War, then they were so friggin' scared of another one that they waited much longer than necessary to stop Hitler.

Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, which wouldn't have happened without the US, they still seem to fall on exactly the wrong side of any decision. They whined and hemmed and hawed about Iraq back in 1990, they couldn't do a thing without us in Kosovo, they chastized Russia for their treatment of the Chechen rebels (ever notice how they romanticize the "underdog", even when they're corrupt, vicious bastards?), they wring their hands over civilian casualties, and now they're whining over Iraq? Who gives a sh** about Iraq? Why, the Europeans of course, because they're the "underdog", the little (figuratively speaking) country getting bullied by the big, bad Americans.

You just can't trust them to do anything right. They're concerned about friggin' global warming when they've got a huge problem with immigrants and terrorists breathing down their necks. Always misguided, always looking in the wrong direction at the wrong time.

They're like little children running with scissors. We have to protect them from themselves.

[syriacus]

George Bush the elder was a classic East Coast cosmopolitan, with the patrician’s easy ability to blend and schmooze

• I think a lot of Americans might feel more comfortable schmoozing with GWB than they would with his father.
• Wouldn't GWB be considered a "patrician" like his father? (and I think his mother, Barbara, is descended from Henry I and Henry II.)
• Since when is being a patrician equated with being a better human or a more sociable person?
• We don't have a caste system here like they did in India (or, practically speaking, like Britain did)

[piasa]

“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.

Call me a blunt Midwestern redneck if you will... but what do Parisians have against speaking the truth ?

[au eagle]

Clinton was spiritually part European

The white-trash, redneck part. Hey, I can say it 'cause I'm suthern.

[Skip Ripley]

The French and the rest of Europe (with the exception of some Brits) are far too sophisticated for concepts like right and wrong. They'd much rather eat brie and enage in moral relativism

[Cicero]

Kennedy could declare “Ich bin ein Berliner”, but Bush never could, because this is so manifestly not the case.

I have news for them. Kennedy was not a Berliner, either. He was just a very skilled image manipulator, with a big following in the press, about as sincere as a used car salesman.

One of Reagan's advisers told him he should learn to take off his jacket and sling it over his shoulder hanging by his index finger--a cool gesture I recall from my own prep-school days. Reagan replied that if he did that, he wouldn't be himself, and he wasn't going to do it.

Clinton and Kennedy both were coached before they went to Berlin, planned their little German speeches, and were about as sincere as . . . slimy Democrats.

[Pushi]

Plus, most of them stink.

[Stefan Stackhouse]

Prendez-moi a la reviere. . .

(thump! thump! thump!)

Placez-moi dans l'eau. . .

(thump! thump! thump!)

Prendez-moi a la reviere. . .

(thump! thump! thump!)

Placez-moi dans l'eau. . .

(thump! thump! thump!)

[Erasmus]

One night in central Munich I was standing in a U-Bahn (subway) station studying the route map intently. An older fellow came sauntering/staggering up to me needing help to find his way home on the train. He was a little inebriated.

I had been in Germany for a total of about 36 hours, so I had to apologize for not being able to help him, due to my "SchwachDeutsch" and my near complete innocence of the arcana of the Munich U-bahn.

At least I looked like a native!

[JessicaDragonet]

If European reporters are as leftist and corrupted as American reporters are....they are lying like dogs about what the European people think of Dubya. I seriously doubt if anything ever written about him in a newspaper...ever caused this man to lose a night's sleep. He is what he is. If they don't like him, well.......the world WILL keep turning.

[rdb3]

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

I thought he said "jelly doughnut." Oh, well.