America, Optimus Maximus!

I think we should officially change the name of the country to America: Best and Greatest! (with the exclamation mark). Imagine the French sitting there in the UN forcing that out through gritted teeth every time they wanted to refer to us :D

*****

Look's like Arafat's about to snuff it. I have a perverse admiration for him (I seriously doubt anyone else could have hung on so long, in such adverse circumstances), but the world's better off without him. It's a shame he wasn't on our side. He had real leadership talent.

At best, the moderates will get control of Palestinian politics, and suppress the terrorists. At worst, it'll touch off a Palestinian civil war, and the moderates can be supported (perhaps even have to form an alliance with the Israelis) as they wipe out the terrorists. Either way, it looks like peace might finally have a chance.

(no subject)

I suppose one of the reasons I have trouble taking the currently fashionable hysterics over Bush seriously is that I'm old enough to have lived through (and been aware of) the Reagan administration. Then, as now, the Republican party needed the support of the Billy-Bobs to carry the Electoral College. Then, as now, they were willing to pander to them with 'moral values'.

The differences are striking, though. Reagan had been a halfwit to begin with, and his advancing senility didn't improve things. This is a man who said (and apparently believed) that trees cause air pollution, that ketchup is a vegetable, that homeless people live that way so their lives won't be as 'complicated', and who was willing to make jokes in public about starting a nuclear war with the Soviets. You never knew in those days if the world would be there tomorrow. Serious, non-token efforts were made then to outlaw abortion, to outlaw homosexuality, to force schoolchildren to pray and to make the 10 commandments law.

Some of the same people that are fretting over Bush today were mourning Reagan when he died a few months back (I drank beer, ate pizza, and threw paper wads at the TV screen during the old scoundrel's funeral, but I digress) and reminiscing about how good things were back then.

We lived through that nightmare. The economy recovered, and four years afterward was booming again. The Constitution survived. Compared to Reagan, Bush is a veritable Solomon. He's going to make the correct noises to appease the hillbilly lobby, and make some cosmetic changes, but he's not going to do any serious harm, except (I hope) to Iran and other enemies of the Republic.