A stronger man (Jimmy Carter, for instance, who always stuck to his guns once he had made a decision, no matter the cost to himself) would have handled Beirut less awkwardly. And just as surely, Bush would have botched it even worse.

[Okay, now that I've done my duty with a prudent and thoughtful comment, I can indulge myself in some good old-fashioned revenge fantasy, even if I am a Quaker, and it is First Day]

“I’m calling dibs on the port-a-let concession on his gravesite…”

No portable toilets, let’s be traditional and have an old-fashioned outhouse over a pit dug in the ground.

In fact, let’s just roll an outhouse over the hole they lay Bush in, and save digging time.

and i’m sure my young marine friend thought it was romantic to be blown out of a humvee and, in spite of his wounds, manage to drag a buddy to safety, and then to be able to look back and see the pieces and parts of his other buddies who weren’t so romantically lucky…sometime i’ll try to remember to ask him just how that rated on the ol’ romantic scale….

note to Rugged: many of your remarks remind me of the folks at my former church, which became “former” (and last) when, a couple of years ago, the good rev said from the pulpit “people hate the preznit because he is a christian”….i decided that if the good rev and the congregation were THAT clueless, i had absolutely no business being there….sincere people who are sincerely wrong….(i had already decided that if the prez was a christian, then i must be hopelessly mistaken on what all those words in red in the bible really mean….but the good rev’s comment was the proverbial straw….)

Probably not all that friendly either.

from here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/sep/03/usa.edpilkington

“A Reuters correspondent was permitted to observe the White House exchange that took place with U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan William Wood and U.S. military and civilian personnel in Kabul.

“The videoconference was stopped several times when the sound crackled, diagnosed by technicians as a bad microphone at Kabul’s end, which was immediately swapped out for a new one. ”

Who thinks the “crackles” weren’t really a bad microphone? I think they were U.S. military and civilian personnel in Kabul unable to control their laughter mingled with screams of rage when Bush nattered on about the “romance” of their mission.

I would pay good Euros to witness McCain first hearing these quotes from the president who is bestowing his endorsement on the McSame campaign. Ah, McSame, you are truly hoist on petard of your own choosing.

OK, I grant you Reagan was prepared to classify catsup as a vegetable. But consider his response to the Oct. 23, 1983 Beirut barracks bombing.
1983 Beirut barracks bombing

“U.S. President Ronald Reagan called the attack a ‘despicable act’ and pledged to keep a military force in Lebanon. . . . . U.S. Vice President George Bush toured the Marine bombing site on October 26 and said the U.S. ‘would not be cowed by terrorists.’

“. . . . Besides a few shellings, there was no serious retaliation for the Beirut bombing from the Americans. In December 1983, U.S. aircraft attacked Syrian targets in Lebanon, but this was in response to Syrian missile attacks on planes, not the barracks bombing.

“. . . . The Marines were moved offshore where they could not be targeted. On February 7, 1984, President Reagan ordered the Marines to begin withdrawal from Lebanon. This was completed four months after the barracks bombing on February 26; the rest of the Multinational Force was withdrawn by April.”

These are not the tactics of a person as stupid as Bush. Whatever Alzheimer’s did to Reagan’s brain a few years later, he started out with more smarts than Bush.

OneMan: I’m thinking it’s sort of a cross between the set of The King and I in Kabul and in the hinterlands one of those John Wayne WWII epics set in China

I think it’s _The Man Who Would Be King_. Check the plot (via IMDB).

Jennifer, I think I’d like to make a reservation. If I’m not alive to take advantage of it, I’ve got heirs. Terms?