About This Site
Interesting Links
Recent Comments
I read with interest an article from the Daily Telegraph by Norman Mailer on 21st February 2003. Buried in it was an interesting quote, which I shall reproduce here:
David Frum, who as a speech writer for Bush (he coined the phrase "Axis of Evil") recounts in The Right Man: the Surprise Presidency of George W Bush a meeting in the Oval Office last September.
The President, when talking to a group of reverends from the major denominations, told them: "You know, I had a drinking problem. Right now, I should be in a bar in Texas, not the Oval Office. There is only one reason that I am in the Oval Office and not in a bar: I found faith. I found God. I am here because of the power of prayer." That is a dangerous remark. As Kierkegaard was the first to suggest, we can never know for certain to whom our prayers will go, nor from whom the answers will come. Just when we think we are at our nearest to God, we could be assisting the Devil.
"Our war with terror," says Bush, "begins with al-Qa'eda, but it does not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated." And, asks Eric Alterman in The Nation, what if America ends up alienating the whole world in the process? "At some point, we may be the only ones left," Bush told his closest advisers, according to an Administration member who leaked the story to Bob Woodward. "That's OK with me. We are America."
I now understand Tony Blair's position as to why it is so important to be seen to be on America's side. Any other position would be lunacy; after all, given the long view - it's not Saddam's "Weapons of Mass Destruction" we should be worrying about.
(If anyone would like to read the full article, please email me and I will forward you an electronic copy; as far as I know, it is unavailable on the web site).