Bush hails 'sheriff' Australia

[emad]

The UK's BBC News reports that:

US President George W Bush has hailed Australia as its "sheriff" in South East Asia. The phrase is likely to raise hackles in the region, where Malaysia's leader Mahathir Mohamad recently accused Australia of acting like a "deputy general" and a Western "transplant".

Mr Bush was asked by The Australian newspaper whether he agreed with Australian Prime Minister John Howard's comment in 1999 that his country was the US' "deputy sheriff". Mr Bush promptly gave Australia a promotion. "No. We don't see it as a deputy sheriff. We see it as a sheriff," he told the paper.

He was speaking ahead of his attendance at an Asian economic forum on Monday and Tuesday, followed by visits to Australia and several other East Asian countries. "The great thing about Australians is they're not afraid," Mr Bush said during the interview, conducted in the White House earlier this week. "When I go to Australia I'll be speaking to a country which does understand the consequences of sacrificing for something greater than themselves."

Malaysian's Deputy Defence Minister Shafie Apdal hit out at the comments on Thursday. "I suppose America wants a puppet of its own in this region whom they can trust who will do whatever they wish," he told The Associated Press.

<snip>

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/3196524.stm


NB:
The Sydney Morning Herald quoted Bush as saying that one reason he wanted to visit was that "they tell me it's kind of like Texas".

[Mari333]

1. What a moronic Twit statement

the fratboy cheerleading cokehead pretend cowboy. He puts on costumes and pretends hes a fighter pilot, he puts on a cowboy hat and pretends hes a cowboy..my god, we are the laughingstock of the world.

[emad]

2. Maybe they'll give him a 'Waltzing Matilda' hat that he can wear

for the State Dinner when he visits the Nazi branch of the family at Windsor Castle later in November.....I'm sure they've got the Goering Suite ready for him!

[Mari333]

3. He probably thinks he's Crocodile Dundee!

what a maroon! I hope he wanders into a swamp and meets a gator. Maybe he can clear some brush after he downs a few pints.
I hope the aussies bare their bums at him.

[Lisa]

9. you mean, the kind with the dangling bottle corks?

He can do that! He's probably got a whole bunch of those in his desk! And that's just from last month!

[DivinBreuvage]

7. Personally I find his folksy idiom delightful...

...and ivory-tower intellectuals underestimate the homespun wisdom of this crackerbarrel philosopher at their peril. I was dismayed by the early overenthusiasm of some journalists who unthinkingly compared him to Winston Churchill (sorry to bring up such old news, but last night's PBS biography on Churchill reopened the wound), because let's face it, despite the rotund Englishman's so-called "reputation" his purple passages stank heavily of the lamp.

Compare this turgid ejaculation:

"Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duty, and so bear ourselves that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say 'This was their finest hour'."

To the down-home vigor of:
"Bring it on!"

The first quote conveys the unfortunate impression of a speaker who has an education and possibly even reads "books". The second is pithy, eloquent and dignified, as only the salt of the earth can be. Imagine what pearls might have graced our native literature if the downhome Crawford rancher, rather than that big-city northern lawyer, had delivered the commemoration speech on the battlefield of Gettysburg. The Civil War wouldn't have dragged on for four long bloody years, I can tell you that.

As for calling Australia the "sheriff" of Southeast Asia, I must admit that it was poor choice of words because the "lawman" image is unusually clichéd for a speaker of Bush's range and power. If he had had more time for reflection he doubtless would have come up with something like this: "Back home in Texas we have a sayin': Ever' now and then the cavalry jes' needs to ride out to keep the Injins on the resavation. Take a few scalps. On behalf a the people a the Yanida States I accept this challenge for the 21st century just as General George Armstrong Custer did in the -- in the -- away back when. And I'm proud to see my trusty compadre Howard John along for the ride."

Françoise

[newyawker99]

8. Hi freedomfrog!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Lisa]

10. at least Churchill could dish out decent insults ...

compare the indignant sputtering like "who cares what you think?" with Churchill's response to Nancy Astor's "if you were my husband, I'd put poison in your coffee" -- "Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it!"


"They are not fit to manage a whelk stall" -- Churchill on the Labour Party of his day. (Wonder what he'd say about Tony Blair?)

[tom_paine]

11. "Stank heavily of the lamp" what does that mean?

I've been dying to know for YEARS since I first read the idiom in "I, Claudius".

And welcome to DU, freedomfrog!

:toast:

[DivinBreuvage]

12. Stinky Lamps

Thanks for the welcome, newyawker99 and tom_paine! :)

Tom, as I understand it, speech or writing that "stinks of the lamp" sounds ostentatiously or unnaturally scholarly, as if you're trying to show off how educated you are; presumably because of all the late nights you spent poring over your books by lamplight.

There's a passage in The Silence of the Lambs (the book, I don't believe it's in the movie) in which Clarice uses the subjunctive while talking to Lecter and he comments that in conjunction with her West Virginia accent her use of it "stinks of the lamp".

Françoise

P.S. I loved I, Claudius and Claudius the God!

[Octafish]

14. Jimi Hendrix wrote "Burning of the Midnight Lamp"

The guy described the struggle that's life and that it requires dedicated scholars.

BTW: A hearty welcome to DU, freedomfrog!

[izzie]

4. Will the Bully get his lap dogs with him?

Where has the old Republican party gone to? This group uses the name but it is the War party really. Not a one has any guts.

[dweller]

5. So git busy sheriff...smoke'm out of a hole...

dp

[E_Zapata]

6. Freud strikes again: Read the Bush statement carefully:

"When I go to Australia I'll be speaking to a country which does understand the consequences of sacrificing for something greater than themselves."

By using the word 'consequences' instead of, say, 'value', Bush is basically saying.......no intelligent being would make the sacrifices for that 'something greater than themselves', ie, the BFEE, Carlyle, Halliburtan.

He lies so much he can't even lie anymore; he ends up telling the truth!

[0007]

13. junior likes folks to think he's a cowboy

of course we all know that junior is a jerk that enjoys talking tough.

[Octafish]

15. Here's a picture of the Little Turd from Crawford.

Courtesy of the Bartcop Collection

[Pert_UK]

16. I'm in Australia - Howard is FUMING about this!!!

All the Press are taking the piss out of him, other countries are calling him a puppet of the US, and every chance he gets he's going on TV to explain that Australia is NOT the Sheriff of the US....

It's very funny....

P.

[proud patriot]

17. hee heee heee hee

B-)

[Matilda]

18. That's 'cause before the Iraq invasion

he was running around being Bush's little deputy and loving it.
Now maybe he's beginning to realise that to everyone else he
just looked like a suckhole.

[Josh]

19. He is going to have the SHIT protested out of him -

except that the only appearance he's making, last I checked, was at parliament, where a good portion of the Labor party will probably turn their backs on him and refuse to applaud.

We HATE him here. Absolutely hate him. The Sydney Morning Herald, which is by some standards quite conservative, posted the following headline when the NORC recounts were withheld briefly following September 11: "NORC covers up proof that Gore won."

[bluedog]

20. What John Howard is saying::::

**I knew he sounded like an idiot when he said that damn statement....To the people from Australia:I'm sorry::: we DID NOT ELECT this moron!!!!!******




SYDNEY (AFP) - Prime Minister John Howard brushed aside charges he was a puppet of the United States after US President George W Bush called the Canberra government Washington's "sheriff" in Asia.



"Can I make it very clear: I don't see this country as being a sheriff, a deputy sheriff, as having any kind of enforcement role in our region," Howard said in a radio interview when asked about Bush's remark.


"If I myself were to choose an expression to describe our role in the region, I would use the name given to our operation in the Solomon Islands -- Helpem Fren -- which is Pidgin for helping your friends," he said.



snip

Bush fanned the flames further this week when asked if Washington still viewed Australia as a deputy sheriff.



http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031017/pl_afp/australia_us_bush_031017070247