And the Award.goes to...Grandpa Khaddafi
I thought I had seen enough infantile insanity from the 2009 Republicans -- supposedly grown men throwing quiet tantrums, people so removed from reality -- Governor Sanford, Chuck Grassley, Senator Ensign and/or his aide who tells people that pornography causes homosexuality, all the rest of them, more or less, with a few notable exceptions like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, and a few others -- I'd seen enough of those men that I assumed we'd ALWAYS be the world champs.
True, the Iranian Prez was in pretty close contention when he was last here -- and he still keeps his hand in the game -- but we're Americans and we do things BETTER!
Gawd -- remember Newt Gingrich's tantrum back in the 90's when he did the congressional version of lying on the floor and kicking and screaming, saying "Mommy! Mommy!! We won't pass ANY budget unless you give us what we want! You're a horrible mommy and we hate you!!"
Now THAT was some world class infantile obstinacy**.
But Moamar Khaddafy's speech at the UN today won him the James Joyce Memorial "Crazy as a Shithouse Rat" Award*, probably well enough to get the trophy permanently.
It was the first time I've ever heard a UN simultaneous translator obviously confounded by what the speaker was saying, even to the point of being relieved by a fresh one late in the 27-hour speech (REALLY? Only 2 hours? It seemed a lot longer than that -- my mistake.) Maybe the translator was just exhausted from the first hour or so, but figuring out how to translate statements that ended up with such English-language gems as "And Lee Oswald killed Kennedy and then was killed by Jack Ruby. Why did the Israeli shoot Oswald?" And all the way back to "Why did they kill Lumumba? And "Why did they kill..." every other person or nation assassinated or massacred, usually, according to him, by America (and he may have been right about some of them) but it would have been more credible if he ALSO mentioned the ones he sent out to blow up civilian planes (not just at Lockerbee) and the ones he personally trained to go to such West African countries as Sierra Leone and Liberia and show the west how to REALLY do the genocidal tango. (He also provided arms for the IRA, but then so did I, on a much smaller level, always putting cash in the unmarked white donation cans barkeeps set out for us. It may have been wrong, but it was up against the Bloody Black and Tan, so .... like some other things, how could it be bad when it felt so good?)
Back to Khaddafi.
He rode a long time on his country's oil and the fact that he looked really cool in the great uniform back in the 60's and 70's. But now he looks like somebody's senile grandfather who doesn't remember how to button his clothes, waggling his finger at us and yelling about 'The Way It Was Back Then' and all the injustices everyone else committed -- as if they were directed personally against him (i.e., anywhere in the Arab or African World)-- I'm guessing at that last comment since he told us all how much he loved President Obama because Obama was "MY Son -- a son of Africa."
And they say being a diplomat is easy -- how'd you like to have to sit through that entire rant if -- unlike Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- you were too slow to get the hell out of the room before he got to the podium?***
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*Joyce used the Irish slang in Ulysses
** And they still seem to have mommy problems -- these days with the Speaker of the House -- is it the maternal bosom? Or just that she's a woman, and even worse, a woman who is a Democrat and who speaks her mind without first checking with a man?
*** And I'm a child of the 60's -- I actually enjoy most insane rants.
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True, the Iranian Prez was in pretty close contention when he was last here -- and he still keeps his hand in the game -- but we're Americans and we do things BETTER!
Gawd -- remember Newt Gingrich's tantrum back in the 90's when he did the congressional version of lying on the floor and kicking and screaming, saying "Mommy! Mommy!! We won't pass ANY budget unless you give us what we want! You're a horrible mommy and we hate you!!"
Now THAT was some world class infantile obstinacy**.
But Moamar Khaddafy's speech at the UN today won him the James Joyce Memorial "Crazy as a Shithouse Rat" Award*, probably well enough to get the trophy permanently.
It was the first time I've ever heard a UN simultaneous translator obviously confounded by what the speaker was saying, even to the point of being relieved by a fresh one late in the 27-hour speech (REALLY? Only 2 hours? It seemed a lot longer than that -- my mistake.) Maybe the translator was just exhausted from the first hour or so, but figuring out how to translate statements that ended up with such English-language gems as "And Lee Oswald killed Kennedy and then was killed by Jack Ruby. Why did the Israeli shoot Oswald?" And all the way back to "Why did they kill Lumumba? And "Why did they kill..." every other person or nation assassinated or massacred, usually, according to him, by America (and he may have been right about some of them) but it would have been more credible if he ALSO mentioned the ones he sent out to blow up civilian planes (not just at Lockerbee) and the ones he personally trained to go to such West African countries as Sierra Leone and Liberia and show the west how to REALLY do the genocidal tango. (He also provided arms for the IRA, but then so did I, on a much smaller level, always putting cash in the unmarked white donation cans barkeeps set out for us. It may have been wrong, but it was up against the Bloody Black and Tan, so .... like some other things, how could it be bad when it felt so good?)
Back to Khaddafi.
He rode a long time on his country's oil and the fact that he looked really cool in the great uniform back in the 60's and 70's. But now he looks like somebody's senile grandfather who doesn't remember how to button his clothes, waggling his finger at us and yelling about 'The Way It Was Back Then' and all the injustices everyone else committed -- as if they were directed personally against him (i.e., anywhere in the Arab or African World)-- I'm guessing at that last comment since he told us all how much he loved President Obama because Obama was "MY Son -- a son of Africa."
And they say being a diplomat is easy -- how'd you like to have to sit through that entire rant if -- unlike Secretary of State Hillary Clinton -- you were too slow to get the hell out of the room before he got to the podium?***
--------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------
*Joyce used the Irish slang in Ulysses
** And they still seem to have mommy problems -- these days with the Speaker of the House -- is it the maternal bosom? Or just that she's a woman, and even worse, a woman who is a Democrat and who speaks her mind without first checking with a man?
*** And I'm a child of the 60's -- I actually enjoy most insane rants.
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posted by Saintperle at
12:42 PM
