America’s arrogance, and Obama’s
Commenter “expat”—who is in a position to know a thing or two about Europe’s reaction to Obama—has written in regard to German opinions about Obama’s statements on Turkish EU membership:
They resented specifically Obama’s public lecturing tone, which was obnoxious, especially since he seems to know nothing of the situation.
During his recent European jaunt, Obama called America’s past attitude towards Europe arrogant. He failed to offer any particulars, and with his concomitant criticisms of predecessor George Bush, my guess is that he’s referring at least in part to that cowboy swagger Europeans so loved to hate.
But expat’s description (and my own observations) of Obama is as least as much (if not more) in line with the definition of the word “arrogant,” which has always seemed to me a perfect description of the man: “overbearing pride evidenced by a superior manner toward inferiors.”
George Bush may have been cocky. But I don’t recall him having an air of looking down on others. This is precisely the attitude Obama conveys, and it’s all the more strange since he—as expat points out—is relatively devoid of real world experience other than the academic. But arrogance is a trait I’ve often noticed in academics, as well.
Note, however, that arrogance is a trait that Obama ascribed to America, not to George Bush specifically. And, although I assume that Obama was relying on people to get the obvious subtext about the cowboy Bush and fill in the blanks themselves, we should take Obama at his word and ask what it is he thinks is so arrogant about America?
It’s an odd adjective to a apply to a nation, come to think of it. Most nations feel a bit superior to others, if only in the cultural sense; it’s part of national pride, which used to be universally thought as a good thing. It’s only when this pride gets out of hand in terms of oppression and/or aggression that it turns bad. Think Germany during WWII, although part of the motivation there was actually the reverse—a sense of shame at having been humiliated at the end of WWI, turned into arrogance and aggressive efforts to restore lost dominance.
If America has done anything even remotely comparable, it has been done in the defense of liberty and the cause of freedom. Is it arrogant for America to be proud of its liberties, and the fact that so many people around the world are desperate to emigrate here? Was it arrogant of America to enter WWI and manage to break the stalemate so that an armistice could finally be signed? Was it arrogant of America to respond to Pearl Harbor by defending itself and all of Europe into the bargain during WWII? And how very arrogant was the US’s postwar Marshall Plan, its assumption that it would be able to rescue and rebuild Europe after the devastation? Was it arrogant to fight against the USSR’s attempt to spread Communism throughout Europe and the world during the Cold War? Is it arrogant of the US to be the major contributor financially to the US-bashing UN, or to host it on its shores? Maybe we should return the organization to some country abroad, where it rightly belongs these days.
Ah, but the Iraq War was arrogant, right? Was the long buildup to the war in which the UN was asked to vote, and Saddam was given plenty of time to prepare for the invasion as best he could, arrogant? I suppose it was arrogant if you believe the “Bush lied about WMDs” meme, but does Obama actually believe that to be the case?
I don’t know; he’s not saying. Not that he’s offering any specifics at all. That makes it easy for the listener to fill in the blanks. What Obama is doing, however, is playing to Europeans’ arrogance about their superiority, while also asserting his own personal arrogance.
[NOTE: I was thinking of writing at more length about nationalism itself, but it turns out that I’ve already done that. So why re-invent the wheel, as it were? Here are some excerpts that seem relevant, especially in regard to the present-day European attitude towards nationalism and its inherent arrogance:
Patriotism has gotten a very bad name during the last few decades. I think part of this feeling began (at least in this country), like so many things, with the Vietnam era. But patriotism and nationalism seem to have been rejected by a large segment of Europeans even earlier, as a result of the devastation both sentiments were seen to have wrought during WWI and WWII. Of course, WWII in Europe was a result mainly of German nationalism run amok, but it seemed to have given nationalism as a whole a very bad name.
Here’s author Thomas Mann on the subject, writing in 1947 in the introduction to the American edition of Herman Hesse’s Demian:
If today, when national individualism lies dying, when no single problem can any longer be solved from a purely national point of view, when everything connected with the “fatherland” has become stifling provincialism and no spirit that does not represent the European tradition as a whole any longer merits consideration”¦”
A strong statement of the post-WWII idea of nationalism as a dangerous force, mercifully dead or dying, to be replaced (hopefully) by a pan-national (or, rather, anational) Europeanism. Mann was a German exile from his own country, who had learned to his bitter regret the excesses to which unbridled and amoral nationalism can lead. His was an understandable and common response, one that helped lead to the formation of the EU. The nationalism of the US is seen by those who agree with him as a relic of those dangerous days of nationalism gone mad without any curb of morality or consideration for others.
I would add that many liberals and Leftists in this country would concur with that last sentiment. Is Obama one of them? I believe so.]
I never ( probably obvious) thought of Bush as arrogant. I believe he was / is extremely proud of our country and its accomplishments yet mindful of its shortcomings and still hopeful that we will try to correct those shortcomings and always try to be an example (and force when necessary) for good in the world.
I feel the same way.
The odd thing about Obama is that he is willing to do something in the name of the country that he would never do in his own personal life – apologize. I have never heard him apologize for mistakes I only hear him rationalize. The epitome of arrogance.
And just another word about pride – I just received the invitation to the graduation of my niece from the Air force Academy – Mya 27. Bachelor’s in engineering – minor in German. Going to pilot training in August. I’m damn proud of her. I will be proud of my nephew when he graduates from the AFA next year. I am proud of my other nephews – one has done two tours in Afghanistan – another is off to Iraq in August. I am proud of my two brothers who both flew in the Air Force – one fighters, one transports. And I am proud of my Father who did 22 years in the Air Force finishing up flying B-52s during the height of the cold war.
I am proud of all of them. I know they are (was in my Dad’s case) all proud of their country – proud enough to serve it. And I know of not one arrogant bone in any of their bodies.
Neo,
I think you hit the nail on the head, viz, that arrogance is a trait commonplace among academics. Obonga is most at home in the cocoon of the university culture, which, in my experience, is a world apart from the way the rest of the country moves and feels.
Academia is dreamland, except for the hard sciences. One does not have to be moored to reality if one is in the business of selling The Dream of Utopia to the credulous kiddies.
That is clearly a problem with the left, seeing something has failed and blaming the “something” itself, its very nature and being, for the failure. Human beings can’t be the problem, it’s always the system, Nationalism, Capitalism, Institutional racism and sexism, and so on, but never Socialism. Socialism is the answer for all the world’s ills. What can possibly go wrong if we all think alike, act alike, and conform — no differences, no disagreements, no problems – utopia. As long as the dreamers see the institutions as the problem and human nature as the solution we continue on the same road, the road to more death and destruction in the name of heaven on earth. There isn’t anything one human won’t do to another when convinced of the promise of a better tomorrow and there lies the problem — humans – and their fallen nature.
neo-neocon: I agree very much with your analysis and the connection which often occurs between academia and arrogance, a peculiar type of hubris epitomized in the ancient Greek play, “The Clouds,” which featured a philosopher in a basket high above the stage pontificating to the lesser beings below. I think it is also interesting that the last President, before Obama, whose background was largely academic, Woodrow Wilson, our only “Ph.D President,” was also known for his hubris and overreaching. Wilson, too, was “loved” by the Europeans, who treated his trip to Europe in 1919 for the peace conference as akin to the “Second Coming.” Those cheers continued to ring in Wilson’s ears long after his fatally-flawed League of Nations was rejected. Trouble is, Obama obvioulsy has bigger ears than Wilson and seems prone to the same academic/hubris disease.
And this also goes right back to my post a few threads ago where I noted that America under BHO is experiencing what happens daily on college campuses. One must remember that the 60’s radicals entrenched themselves into the social sciences, english, and education departments. “Arrogance” just barely scratches the surface with these people when they were 20 or now that they are in the their late 50’s; and BHO fits very comfortably in with their worldview.
A Navy recruiter had a table set up yesterday in our student center. She looked rather miserable as the stream of students and faculty purposely ignored her or gave her some hard stares. So I went over I said a few encouraging words. She smiled and jokingly said doing these stints on campuses is considered hazardous duty 😉
Actually, the long build up to the invasion of Iraq was extremely arrogant.
We believed that even giving Saddam Hussein years to prepare, that he still wouldn’t be able to defend against us.
I’d say that shows a large of amount of pride and faith in ourselves.
As it turned out, we were partially right. The invasion went easier than predicted, but Iraq took the time to build up post invasion strategy and tactics that were more successful.
Brian
Bush wasn’t arrogant to Europe. It’s just that America is superior to Europe in every way.
No brag, just fact.
(Hey Neo, did you read this->)
By coincidence, the New York Times published a story dated April 6 entitled When All You Have Left Is Your Pride. The focus of the story is on people who have lost their jobs but still dress up for work and “commute” every day, in many cases to a coffee shop or a bar. The bulk of the article is a discussion, based on interviews with psychologists and results of their research, as to the place of pride in those people’s behavior and in human psychology in general.
One excerpt I found particularly interesting was this, “Researchers tend to split pride into at least two broad categories. So-called authentic pride flows from real accomplishments, like raising a difficult child, starting a company or rebuilding an engine. Hubristic pride, as Dr. Tracy calls it, is closer to arrogance or narcissism, pride without substantial foundation. The act of putting on a good face may draw on elements of both.”
As many people have pointed out, Obama’s resume is awfully thin for a presidential candidate, let alone a serving president. And barely a month and a half into office he had this exchange with reporters:
Right. Six weeks in, he’s very good at it. Potential cabinet appointments are falling left and right, he’s making diplomatic gaffe after diplomatic gaffe, he’s reneging on just about every open government promise he made, he can’t speak a coherent sentence without relying on his teleprompterian crutch, and the long term results (either positive or negative) of any of the legislation he’s worked to pass is completely unknown and yet it’s not too soon to declare to the world that he’s a very good president. I can’t help thinking this puts him in the second category of pride (“hubristic pride”) outlined by Dr. Tracy above. Especially since that kind of assessment is usually best left to an outside observer. One might think one is great, but only an arrogant narcissist would good around telling others that was so.
Please do read the article if you get a chance, Neo.
Brian,
I don’t think there was any arrogance in the long build up to the invasion of Iraq. It was obvious after the first gulf war that Saddam was incapable of putting up any real opposition. If there was any arrogance at all it was in the way the “brain trust” in the DOD handled things after the fall of the government. For example – completely disbanding the military was a huge mistake.
There’s an old football saying if you can do what you say you can on the field, it ain’t arrogance.
Amen to that, Darth Aggie.
Anyone seen the Rasmussen Poll displayed on Drudge?
When the gimme – ites outnumber the rest of us, where’s the money going to come from to support them?
Someone needs to take a bunch of pictures of real life in Cuba so these dingbats can see what socialism is really like. And if sharing the wealth is what it’s all about, how come Castro is the only billionaire in Cuba?
I just looked up the definitions of nationalism and patriotism in my old Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary.
nationalism: loyalty and devotion to a nation, esp. a sense of nationalconsciousness and exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations or supernational groups
patriotism: love for or devotion to one’s country
The big difference is the word love. Love is something that makes you grow. It may mean you are ruthlesss in its defense, but when unthreatened, you can extend your love farther and let it encompass even more people. It is just as healthy to love your country as to love your parents. I can say I had the best parents in the whole world, but I don’t say that to put them in some kind of competition. In fact, I believe the world would be a far better place if everyone could say that.
Nationalism seems to grow out love that was stifled, and the masochism we see Obama and the left display is just another face of the same phenomenon.
Oh, wait, I get it. That can’t happen here, version II.
America’s version of socialism will be purrrrrrrfect.
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The European distrust of Nationalism is understandable. I have recently re-visited World War I in my reading. It grew out of Nationalism run wild on both sides of the conflict and it was absolutely horrendous. Almost unimaginably so. I remember one engagement in which the British lost 60,000 dead in one day, and there were similar days year after year. France and Germany fared no better. World War II was not so obviously the product of rampant Nationalism on all sides; although that certainly motivated the Axis powers. We have a different experience; just as our experience differs from that of the rest of the world in so many other ways. So, while we can try to understand their paranoia, there is no reason for us to kowtow to it; any more than our President should kowtow to the Despot of Saudi Arabia.
I hate how certain templates become established as conventional wisdom. Bush an arrogant cowboy? I thought that Bush was the soul of personal humility in his public utterances. The difference was that he did not project that humility as endless apologies for his country’s justified actions. Bush did not speak at length; but when he spoke you had the sense that he spoke as a serious man and a leader who understood his responsibilities.
The other fallacious template is that Obama is cool and erudite; even intellectual. I am sorry, but I have not seen the evidence to support any of that. He is cool, in the sense that he is not engaged and apparently has nothing that he believes passionately. But, I don’t think that is not what his flacks mean by cool. He can generally read a teleprompter competently if that is what is meant by erudite. He cannot answer a question honestly or directly, nor can he defend a position without this crutch. Intellectual? Where is the evidence?
Was nationalism really the spark which began WWI and WWII? Or is nationalism misidentified as the culpable spark?
Theres a theme the word “arrogant” directed at Americans follows. To ridicule. Just like “racist, greedy and glutenous” are meant to do.
I’m convinced 60% of Obama’s support comes from people not knowing their own selves well enough to handle ridicule when presented in a pop culture concensus fashion.
America is not arrogant. France is arrogant; everybody knows that. France is the standard by which arrogance is judged. By that measure, we use.
America has pulled from the fire the chestnuts of many countries on earth, sometimes twice. That is our unforgivable sin.
Argh. “Use” = “lose”.
gcotharn, Nationalism was absolutely the underlying cause for WWI. The European powers were competing in every conceivable way for empire and prestige. The tender was laid. It simply took one spark to set off the conflagration.
As I said about WWII you have to point to the Nationalistic impetus in Germany and Italy, fannned by charismatic and despotic leaders. They effectively used the economic dislocation and loss of national pride that resulted from WWI. As for Japan, I suppose you could argue whether it was purely militaristic nationalism, or economic expansionism, that was primarily in play. In fact it was a combination.
As I also stated. Our experience was not the same. It is well to understand the history of others and the psychological impact it has had on subsequent generations; but we need not, nor should we, subordinate our judgment to that of others. Nor need we apologize for our own history and our own view of the world. Our fore-fathers (and fore-mothers) earned respect for this Nation and we have every right to expect our President to acknowledge the facts.
give br549 a kewpie doll!!!!
and gcotharn
misidentified, the culpable spark was socialism.
both the national socialists and the international (transnational) socialists were trying to take over germany, the national socialists took germany, but ultimately lost the war, and so the socialist victors spun it.
by spinning it to nationalism, you make people loath what keeps them safe. like a person living in a bad neighborhood who is convinced locking their doors is a bad thing.
russia was and has been more imperialistic than any other nation. in fact, they techically want the whole world… and in a world of nuclear weapons you dont do that by war, you do that by applying a constant bias that never swerves.
But arrogance is a trait I’ve often noticed in academics, as well.
You don’t say! ( sarc, sarc)
I would concur with others who consider the French to be arrogant. I have dealt with the French as housemates in Latin America and in the US, as an employer in Latin America (and heard stories about the French as employers there and in the US), and as fellow tourists in Latin America. When one discerns arrogance in French people across countries and decades one comes to the conclusion that yes, they are arrogant.
Here is another take on arrogance. Outside of Buenos Aires, other Argentines consider Porteé±os ( residents of Buenos Aires) to be arrogant. One Porteé±o’s take on this was that in a crowded city, one had to be assertive and pushy to survive. That assertiveness, when carried over into the hinterlands, is often seen as arrogance.
Artfldgr you ascribe to gcoththarn that which I asserted, so I will answer.
You are completely wrong. Despite Marx’s expectations that Germany was the appropriate vessel for his experiments, International Socialism never got a foothold in Germany. As I said, the defeat in WWI and subsequent burden of crippling reparations, compounded by world-wide economic depression set the stage for Hitler and the NAZIS. Hitler was not in any way associated with an international movement. He was motivated purely by German nationalism; he appealed to German national and racial pride and the rest, is as they say, history. Mussolini was Hitler writ small. He wanted an Empire; he failed at that and allied with Hitler.
As you know the “Socialist” state of Russia conspired with Hitler to carve up Poland and hopefully snatch Finland. Hitler betrayed Stalin before Stalin had a chance to betray Hitler. That is the only part that the international socialist movement played in WWII.
The Japanese probably did not even have a word for Socialism. They needed raw resources to expand their power and they used their military to take them.
I am no admirer of Socialist movements. But, let us not ignore or modify history.
I agree that WWI was based primarily on nationalism, which was a growing force in Europe after the Congress of Vienna, culminating, perhaps, in Bismarck’s creation of one German political entity. It was nation against nation to determine who would be the primary power on the Continent, and the UK did not want it to be Germany. As to WWII, in Europe it had nationalistic underpinnings, but was more racial in tone because of the Nazi beliefs in the superiority of the Aryans and their right to rule others – nature favored the “stronger” race, in other words. The “right” to be an Aryan was not limited by the Nazis to just Germans. Witness Himmler’s search for “Aryan” children in the conquered countries and the position in which Hitler viewed the Scandinavians and, for a time, the British. The war in the Pacific, on the other hand, seems to be nationalistic. The Japanese needed colonies to supply their material needs and needed to rid their nation of the constant threat of American intervention interferring with their supply of raw materials from their colonies. Japan did not have a goal of conquering the U.S. – they just wanted our influence and interests to end at Hawaii. Unfortunately, they thought the U.S. would respond to an attack by withdrawal from the Pacific. Boy, were they wrong! And so it goes.
I think that unquestionably, many people–Europeans, but also quite a few Americans–view patriotism as a harmful force because it was harnassed to such bad ends by the Nazis.
What this ignores is that patriotism was also an important force in *defeating* the Nazis…American patriotism, British patriotism, Russian patriotism.
Should *railroads* be condemned as evil because the Nazis used this technology to transport prisoners to concentration camps?
“The odd thing about Obama is that he is willing to do something in the name of the country that he would never do in his own personal life – apologize”
50+ years ago, C S Lewis explained this phenomenon very well in his essay dangers of national repentance.
The discussion on the origins of the First World War is interesting. That war is far more important historically, socially, and intellectually than most of us recognize.
I think it is facile to ascribe the outbreak of the war to nationalism. The belligerents were multi-national empires, though this is relatively less true of Germany. It seems to me that that the best descriptions of how a diplomatic crisis turned into to Armageddon, like any real disaster, needed a cascade of failures: 1) Wilhelm II’s decision not to renew the Re-insurance Treaty with Austria and Russia that kept the balance of power in Eastern Europe; 2) the decay of Ottoman power in the Balkans; 3) political failure in the Hapsburg Empire to adequately address increasing Slavic national consciousness; 4) Austrian indecision and Schlamperei in punishing Serbia for the Sarajevo attack; 5) British indecisiveness about intervention and failure to signal intent; 6) the Russia decision to mobilize against Austria and Germany; 7) German failure of war-planning in adopting the Schlieffen Plan; 8) Wilhelm’s failure to assert control over existing German military plans at the critical moment.
An analysis of the breakdown in Great power Balance of Power calculations has a lot more explanatory power overall than the impact of nationalism.
I recommend John Keegan’s history and Niall Ferguson’s The Pity of War and . For the impact on the literary imagination, Paul Fussell’s is tremendous. For an extra bonus, the greatest literary product of the Great War is…
…The Lord of the Rings.
That’s an unintentional emoticon.
Oldflyer, Bolshevism made a pretty decent run at Germany in both the immediate post World War I period with attempted coups in both Bavaria and Prussia, and in the period immediately after the crash and mass unemployment started in the early 30’s. I recall that the Communists were the second biggest vote-getting party after the NSDAP, but perhaps that is a trick of memory.
Oblio, Communist were the third, after NSDAP and Social Democrats. There was a coalition between Communists and Social Democrats, which could stop NSDAP, but Stalin ordered Communists to break coalition, so clearing way to Hitler. It was intentional: Stalin needed Hitler to launch a war against Britain and France and so to take power over Europe for himself. NSDAP has 7 mln votes, Social Democrats 6 mln, Communists 5 mln.
A set-back is the best cure for arrogance.
Hi –
I, too, am an expat, living in Germany.
You must understand the romantic background of much of anti-Americanism in Europe, and by romantic I don’t mean bodice-ripping books, but rather the romantic period in European history, where much intellectual thought turned to elitism and purity (I know, I’m simplifying enormously).
Many in Europe will always view the US as being arrogant, yet at the same time completely incompetent and childish. They see this because the US is really nothing more than an accident of history, a bastard nation, populated by ignorant mongrels whose very make-up precludes them from being anything near the equivalent of civilized societies.
Benjamin Franklin used this “understanding” of the US to full advantage, dressing up as a frontiersman, a diamond in the rough, to gather favor at the French court. This is nothing new and has been the case since the middle of the 17th century, where reports of the wondrous beauty of the American landscape were dismissed as being obviously falsified, done merely to fool the credible into moving to the colonies.
How can, then, the Europeans view the US as being arrogant, based on the definition that NeoNeoCon is using: because there is another definition:
having or showing feelings of unwarranted importance out of overbearing pride
Here the key word is unwarranted: this is why many Europeans grow up thinking the US is arrogant. They simply don’t believe that the US deserves the power that it has or its accomplishments. In former times people shook their heads about how such a mongrel race could put on airs of being equal to the flower of European aristocracy; today the same pseudo-elite judges Obama as being a much better chap than that boor Bush, but because he simply is American, the airs that the man puts on. If he’d been so astute as to have attended a proper university and had been properly mentored, he might have amounted to something.
I’ve been here for a long time and I’ve learned to ignore this, much along the principles of not minding who gets credit as long as the work gets done. But it is a typically elitist attitude that reflects social arrogance at its best: you see the same attitudes in the reaction of the American elitists to someone like Governor Palin…
Click on John Opie’s name above for a great PJ O’Rourke talk with an intro by Tom Wolfe.
For those who didn’t click david foster’s link to “the dangers of national repentance,” I encourage you to do so now. Lewis is simply excellent on this subject.
As to the discussion of whether nationalism was at fault for the wars of Europe, I propose a distinction I find helpful. What Europeans call nationalism is closer to what we would call tribalism. Germans did not believe in the superiority of their nation, but of their race – witness the exclusions, not only of Jews and Gypsies, but Slavs. Some European countries, such as the Swedes and the Portugese, have such complete overlap of tribe and nation that distinctions cannot be made. Other nations, such as the Balkan countries, have less homogeneity, resulting in boundary conflicts and wars. Serbs did not feel loyalty to Yugoslavia, but to Serbs.
The British colonies, including especially America, were able to transcend these tribal categories and form nations. Not perfectly or uninterruptedly, but enough to move on to the next, more difficult step of melding even different races into a nation. That we have failed to do that completely is sad, but not discouraging. We have done a damn sight better at that than anyone else (with nods to Canada and Australia). Nationalism, seen also in the British cooperation of Welsh, English, Scots, and Irish, was what won the war against the tribalists, not what caused it. If we split nationalism into those two different senses, much of the dispute above evaporates.
Thanks for the clarification, Sergey. My memory is not what it used to be. The point remains that International Socialism had a great shot in Germany, except for divisions within the international Socialist movement.
Excellent point(s), John.
“Unwarranted” and “undeserved” are curious concepts in the European mindset, and are often applied to someone getting something to which he wasn’t born. The upstart! He doesn’t know his place!
Success should come effortlessly, if it comes at all, which preferably it doesn’t. Mustn’t try too hard, or at least not be seen to try too hard. So…gauche to do so. So..earnest. So…American.
People who make a lot of money are piggies, because Europeans tend to see life as a zero-sum game; someone getting more means someone else getting less. People who inherit a lot of money, on the other hand, are curiously (by American standards) well-regarded. It’s not their fault they were born into wealth.
Americans who think Europeans are just like us clearly have never lived in Europe for any considerable time.
Occcam…This kind of thing goes back a long way. Michael Chevalier, a Frenchman who visited America 1833-1835, astutely analyzes the reactions of many other foreign visitors:
“Almost all English travelers in this country have seen a great deal that was bad and scarcely anything good. The portrait they have drawn of America and the Americans is a caricatkure which, like all good caricatures, has some resemblence to the original. The Americans have a right to deny the jurisdiction of the tribunal, for they have a right to be tried by their peers and it does not belong to the most complete aristocracy in Europe, the English aristocracy, to sit in judgment on a democracy. Yet all the English travelers in America have belonged to the aristocracy by their connections or their opinions, or have aspired to it, or aped its habits and judgments that they might seem to belong to it.”
Nice comment thread, everyone. These are the spirited type of dinner conversations I always want to sit in on and listen to.
Gcotharn:
What started WWI was, as Bismarck predicted, “Some damn fool thing in the Balkans.”
I suppose it was arrogant if you believe the “Bush lied about WMDs” meme.What amazes me about Bush’s lies is the hypnotic eloquence with which he promulgated them.How else to account for the fact that France, Germany, Czechoslovakia, Italy, Spain, Bill and Hillary, et al, believed it too?
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He hasn’t any real accomplishments, but he’s in a position of enormous power and popularity. He’d have to be arrogant or he’d go nuts. He needs something to cover up his emptiness.
In reply to Texan99: I guess anyone can be elected to the US senate- the 100 most powerful men in the world.
Yes, John Bennett, that’s about the size of it.