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Last Tango in Jo'Burg

Friday September 6, 2002

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From Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

NOTE: Here is an amusing recounting of my appearance on "Donahue" the other night.

• The Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development, from my point of view, was a ROUSING SUCCESS.

• I will now have milked it for a full week-and-a-half, making this the single most Mullable subject since Monica.

• It is also a success in that I was correct which, as those of you who lay claim to the fastest "Reply" finger in the West can attest, doesn't happen all that often.

• I have been saying throughout this charade in South Africa, that the members of the Professional Kvetching Class, who descended like a cloud of cranky locusts, were not the least interested in Sustainable Development, but were VERY interested in sustaining their Anti-American keening.

• The senior American official at the event was Secretary of State Colin Powell. Other than when the President, Vice President, the Speaker of the House, or the President Pro Tempore of the Senate are in the room, the Secretary of State is ALWAYS the senior American official.

• But that didn't stop the Kvetchers. Oh, sure they yelled at Secretary Powell. And they chanted at Secretary Powell. And they marched around with signs while Secretary Powell was trying to speak, but that's not what they wanted.

• They wanted to be on CNN International every 20 minutes for the next six weeks by shouting, chanting and marching while President Bush was speaking.

• Ah, life's little disappointments.

• Let me make this point as gently as possible: Secretary of State Powell - I believe this is true - is the only Black Foreign Minister of a non-Black nation in the world. Maybe ever.

• Nothing George W. Bush does will ever be enough.

• Nevertheless, Secretary Powell got through his speech, the U.S. delegation pretty much got what it wanted into the documents, and pretty much kept out what it didn't want, so I guess we won. Whoo-hoo.

• Now, raise your right hand and join me in taking this pledge:

  If we ever spend one dime of U.S. taxpayers' money on that kind of international street theater again, we will demand it come out of the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts.

• Meanwhile, back in the U S of A, the President met with the leaders of Congress from both sides of the aisle and from both sides of the Capitol to begin the process of getting a Congressional resolution on Iraq.

• Although there is much mumbling in the Republican cloakrooms, when push comes to shove, the case will be made, a resolution will be introduced, and it will pass with not more than a handful of votes in opposition.

• The President will be speaking to the delegates at the United Nations next week - assuming they've all recovered from their binge in Jo'Burg - to make the Iraqi case.

• This, as I understand it, is what our valiant allies want us to do: Wait until we are attacked again, then spend another six months determining who was behind it, then come back to them to see if it was a serious enough violation of international law to dump Saddam.

• As has been pointed out here before, Americans are not, by our nature, a belligerent. Largely because we do very well in the war phase, but do very badly in the post-war phase.

• As we will be reminded with stark clarity next Wednesday, ridding Iraq of Saddam would not be a "pre-emptive" strike. We are ALREADY AT WAR and Saddam has chosen to be on the other side.

• I don't remember anyone suggesting that we should leave those nice Taliban alone because there was no evidence they were directly involved in the attacks.

• Meanwhile all this Iraqi talk is having at least some good effect: If you were a General in Saddam's army, how well would YOU be sleeping?

• To all my Jewish friends: Good Yuntiff. Happy New Year.

• A BIG Secret Decoder Ring today: The definition of the word, "keening," the list of succession to the Presidency, a link to the end of the Johannesburg summit, and a brief explanation of the Jewish New Year.
  --END --
  Copyright © 2002 Richard A. Galen

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