Better to be free for an hour than to be a slave for 40 years

Today Bush celebrated – for the very last time in the White House – Greek Independence Day. As usual, he did not say from whom Greece became independent. But then, he may think that Cyprus is one of the 50 states: “Ambassador Kakouris of -- to Cyprus is with us -- from Cyprus to U.S. is with us.”


ALSO, OLIVES. THEY’RE VERY COMMITTED TO OLIVES: “Throughout their history, the people of Greece have been committed to liberty. They’ve also been committed to the important principle that liberty only survives when brave men and women are ready to come to its defense.” Oh dear, he’s been watching his DVD of “300” again.


“In the years leading up to Greece’s war for independence, one of the rallying cries of the Greek people was that it was better to be free for an hour than to be a slave for 40 years. Those are the kind of folks who had their priorities straight.” But of course 9/11 changed everything.

He thanked Greece for sending troops to Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo and Lebanon, telling the ambassador to “thank your governments [sic] for those strong signals that liberty is universal, and that liberty will bring the peace we all hope.” How do Greeks with guns send strong signals that liberty is universal, a gift from Zeus or whatever?

You put your right foot in, you put your right foot out; you put your right foot in, and you shake it all about.

It soothes my spirit to be with you

Today George Bush celebrated Greek independence day, the anniversary of the day Delta House declared independence from the tyrannical rule of Dean Wormer.


And then he looked into the big brown eyes of Archbishop Demetrios...


“One of the joys about being the President is you get to meet some pretty interesting people,” he said. “And it gives me great -- it soothes my spirit to be with you,” he said. “I thank you for your spirituality,” he said. And then he celebrated a little Greek independence of his own, if you know what I mean.

In it all the way

George Bush celebrated Greek Independence Day (which is just like American Independence Day, except the alien invaders blow up the Acropolis instead of the White House). The holiday gave Shrub a too-rare chance to talk about ancient Athens, in a bit of his speech I’m guessing he didn’t write himself. Evidently democracy “is a universal concept, started by the Athenians. ... Freedom is not confined to Greece, nor is it confined to America. It is universal in its application, and that’s one of the great lessons of Greek Independence Day.” Reading these things, I always fantasize that I’m in the room, pop up and ask him, for example, if he can tell us what it was that Greece became independent from.

And just before he made out with a Greek Orthodox archbishop, he commented that Greek Independence Day is held on the same day as the Greek Orthodox Feast of the Annunciation, “because they both represent good news.” Is that line as creepy to everyone else as it is to me?



Rumsfeld, about people calling for him to resign: “those kinds of calls have been going on for five-plus years. And the president has asked me not to get involved in politics, and that’s politics.” So the fact that some people recognized your extreme incompetence more than five years ago makes their recognition of that fact less valid in some way?


Rummykins says it would reduce violence if there were an actual Iraqi government, blames lack of one on violence. “Have they [terrorists] delayed it? Probably. They probably have. And is that harmful? Yes.”

Quoting FDR after Pearl Harbor, Rummy says, “we can prevail only if we are in it all the way.” I assume he’s working on defending his failures in Iraq, as many generals did after Vietnam, by claiming that the country never really “fought to win.” The stab-in-the-back theory (Dolchstoß, in the original German). When a reporter asked him a question about the quote, he said, “I think that I was quoting, as I recall, Franklin Roosevelt...” In a time when his competency is being questioned, he’s already unsure of the source of his own quote ten minutes after he’s used it.

Asked about the Pentagon bribing Iraqi newspapers to insert happy-news: “I’m not going to make a judgment off the top of my head.” That’s the difference between Rummy and the rest of us: we knew this was a bad thing within seconds after this was revealed nearly four months ago, but Rummy will not be rushed into forming a thought. He is, and I’m quoting, as I recall, Abraham Lincoln, or possibly Genghis Khan, in it all the way.