Bush to engage skeptical U.N. on MideastOne of the defining moments for this President comes each September (bar his first one in office), when he speaks before the UN at its opening week's ceremonies.
NEW YORK - President Bush is trying to persuade skeptical world leaders to embrace his vision for the Middle East in a speech before the United Nations on Tuesday where he is calling on the world to "stand up for peace" in the face of violent extremism. Bush's challenge is to build international support to confront multiple problems in the region: unabated violence in Iraq, a stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace process, armed Hezbollah militants in Lebanon and Iran defiantly pursuing its nuclear program.
To say the reception has gotten icy....well...The UN, when Bush speaks, may be the only place on the planet that global warming hasn't affected. And this is truly Bush's fault, not only in squandering the goodwill of the world after September 11, not only in attacking and devastating a nation that was no threat to our security and liberty, not only in turning his nose up at overtures from allies who wish to see him engage rather than trample, nevermind the possible war crimes he has committed, but by refusing to engage those he has determined to be the Axis of Evil, except with hostility and violence.
There, the mark of his leadership, on the very issue he has made the centerpiece of his Presidency, has shown the world that he is an abject failure and a coward. Bush's approbation of "freedom" shows that he wants freedom for all...on his terms. Which simply isn't going to happen. Never has, never will. History teaches us that mighty empires were formed by men who believed, as Bush does, that his form of "freedom" is the best.
And the rest of the world isn't as young as the United States, nor as immature as its leaders. It's hard to believe that these are the self-proclaimed "adults" who took over, but the United States was more respected and more mature under a randy, horny Arkansan (who actually attended church regularly) than they are under a supposedly sober faux-evangelical with delusions of naivete.
One cannot be President in 21st Century America and be ignorant, although Dumbya is sure trying his level best to prove that theory wrong.
Winston Churchill allegedly once said "An empty cab pulled up and (then-Prime Minister Clement) Attlee stepped out." I suspect the world sees Bush in the same manner: an empty suit, full of echoes and noises, but ultimately to be ignored for the good of the rest of the world.
Sadly, Bush, stumbling over this truth, picks himself up and continues running. Yes, he'll continue to bully and badger, and lose, and in twenty years, his legacy will be the embarassment he caused to America and its waning reputation as a superpower.
snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky
Bush
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