I figured I was never going to link either Bill Maher (annoying), or the Huffington Post (they spam me), but here goes. He deserves props for this post: I Love Being on the Side of My President (Sorry for the lenghty pull-quote, but I doubt the Huff-Po cares about the extra hits from little old me.)
...I hope this doesn't ruin your birthday, but I have to say, watching George Bush talk about Israel the last week has reminded me of a feeling that I hadn't felt in so long I forgot what it felt like: the feeling of pride when your president says what you want your president to say, especially in a matter that chokes you up a bit. I surrender my credentials as Bush exposer - from the very beginning - to no man, but on Israel, I love it that a U.S. president doesn't pretend Arab-Israeli conflict is an even-steven proposition. Lots of ethnic peoples, probably most, have at one time or another lost some territory; nobody's ever completely happy with their borders; people move and get moved, which is why the 20th century saw the movement of tens if not hundreds of millions of refugees in countries around the world. There was no entity of Arabs called "Palestine" before Israel made the desert bloom. If those 600,000 original Palestinian refugees had been handled with maturity by their Arab brethren, who had nothing but space to put them, they could have moved on -- the way Germans, Czechs, Poles, Chinese and everybody else has, including, of course, the Jews.
But I digress. I really wanted to say that, for all those who accuse the likes of myself and the birthday girl of being unpatriotic, or hating America first, the feeling I've had watching Israel defend herself and a US president defend Israel (a country that is held to a standard for "restraint" that no other country ever is asked to meet, but that's another story) just reminds me how wrong that is. I LOVE being on the side of my president, and mouthing "You go, boy" when he gets it right. He just, outside of this, almost never does...
I know the feeling. I felt that way about GWB on September 11, although I never left.
[h/t: isirota1965]
I have no 'props' for Maher on this or any other issue. Why is he only praiseful of the President when it comes to defending Israel? Where is his praise for the President defending human freedom everywhere else?
Instead we get a back-handed compliment followed by the usual ill-informed snark. Ill-informed being the nicest description of so many of the President's critics.
Well, geez, serves me right for trying to "reach across the aisle" and post something positive!
Maher is like a broken alarm clock, the clock running backwards and convulsively and the alarm generally going off when it shouldn't and failing to go off when it should; still, he gets most of this one right. It's a highly diverse polis and all manner and type of quackery is to be expected, so when this particular quacker quacks at the right time there's no reason to refrain from acknowledging it, the rarity and shock of the occurance notwithstanding.
I agree with. Maher could have just kept quiet or nitpicked something. Insteda he came out and said the President did a good job. He didn't need to but he did it anyway.
I also agree with you about the "moment" for the rest of us.....GWB on the rubble telling us that the rest of the world would hear us.
I love Rudi talking about that day and saying he turned to Bernie Kerrick and said "Thank God George Bush is President!"