Anyone else amused that Bush quoted our craziest PM?

[yvr girl]

Mackenzie-King was looney.

[Hand]

1. Was he the one...

...who discussed foreign policy with his dog?

:silly:

[iverglas]

5. dead dog, that is -- and dead mother

Although I believe the then current dog was the reincarnation of the dead dog ... I tend to forget the details.

William Lyon Mackenzie King
Sat in the corner and played with string
And loved his mother like anything
William Lyon MacKenzie King

Oh heavens, I google and I find that that doggerel (which I learned I don't know where, and nobody else seems to have ever heard) was F.R. Scott! Oh, oops, no, it was Dennis Lee -- author of Alligator Pie. ;)

This one was F.R. Scott:

W.L.M.K.

How shall we speak of Canada,
Mackenzie King dead?
The Mother's boy in the lonely room
With his dog, his medium and his ruins?

He blunted us.

We had no shape
Because he never took sides,
And no sides
Because he never allowed them to take shape.

He skilfully avoided what was wrong
Without saying what was right,
And never let his on the one hand
Know what his on the other hand was doing.

The height of his ambition
Was to pile a Parliamentary Committee on a Royal Commission,
To have "conscription if necessary
But not necessarily conscription,"
To let Parliament decide--
Later.

Postpone, postpone, abstain.

Only one thread was certain:
After World War I
Business as usual,
After World War II
Orderly decontrol.
Always he led us back to where we were before.

He seemed to be in the centre
Because we had no centre,
No vision
To pierce the smoke-screen of his politics.

Truly he will be remembered
Wherever men honour ingenuity,
Ambiguity, inactivity, and political longevity.

Let us raise up a temple
To the cult of mediocrity,
Do nothing by halves
Which can be done by quarters.

http://www.library.utoronto.ca/canpoetry/scott_fr/poem5.htm

A temple to the cult of mediocrity -- might have been a more fitting quotation for Bush to adopt.

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Aw, ol' MacKenzie King was just ahead of his time.

Spiritualism is what comes after Pentecostalism.

[glarius]

3. I think old Mackenzie used to have seances to talk over problems

Bush probably thought he was a real king!

[gjb]

10. No worse than that. He held seance's to get political advice from

his dead Mother! He was a bonafide nutball. Luckily he was a progressive politician and encouraged independent thinking on the part of Cabinet Ministers. He was a strong supporter of Unemployment Insurance.

http://www.collectionscanada.ca/king/053201/053201130204_e.html

[Lautremont]

4. Not only that, but he used the King quote

to berate us for not joining up with his crusade. Very nice, especially when the quote came from a time when everyone was waiting for America to get up off its ass and fight Nazis with everyone else.

[Hand]

6. Funny you should mention that....

I was kind of thinking the same thing. Needless to say, Paul (Poodle II) Martin didn't mention it either...

:grr:

[Lisa]

7. I can just imagine Bush talking to his dog Barney ...

... and getting foreign policy advice from his mom ...

Actually, he sure does have a lot in common with King!

[arikara]

8. Maybe a bit off topic but that just reminds me of something

Has anyone read Donald Jack's Bartholomew Bandy books? There was a really funny one where Bandy has some run-ins with Mackenzie King while he's holding seances; and also crash lands and comes upon Mackenzie King while he's out camping in a railcar with his woman friend and her husband.

Those books were some of the funniest I have ever read.

[achtung_circus]

9. Me Bandy, You Cissie