Bush: Chirac "sees himself as Mr. Arab."

[rodeodance]

Now we have a friend in France----a neoliberal


He Is Said to Have Sought $1 Billion and Information on Arms

By Karen DeYoung and Michael Abramowitz
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 27, 2007; Page A17



> .......A press official at the Spanish Embassy in Washington said no one was available to comment.
>
> The account offered a rare glimpse of how Bush interacted with a trusted foreign leader, offering blunt assessments and showing a determination that led even Aznar, a close ally on Iraq, to ask that Bush show "a little more patience" in the march toward war. Bush expressed anger and irritation at those governments that disagreed with him, warning that they would pay a price. He directed particular scorn toward then-French President Jacques Chirac, one of the most public opponents of invasion, saying Chirac "sees himself as Mr. Arab."
>
> Although Bush's public position at the time of the meeting was that the door remained open for a diplomatic solution, hundreds of thousands of U.S. troops had already been deployed to Iraq's border, and the White House had made its impatience clear. "Time is short," Bush said in a news conference with Aznar the same day.
>
> El Pais, a leading Spanish daily and a critic of the war, said the transcript of the conversation was prepared by Spain's ambassador to the United States, Javier Ruperez, who was at the meeting in Crawford. The newspaper did not say how it obtained the memo.
>
> In the transcript, translated from Spanish by The Washington Post, Bush said that Europeans were insensitive to "the suffering that Saddam Hussein has inflicted on the Iraqis" and added: "Maybe it's because he's dark-skinned, far away and Muslim -- a lot of Europeans think he's okay." But Bush was happy to play the "bad cop," he said. "The more the Europeans attack me, the stronger I am in the United States."

[Kagemusha]

1. Ok, Bush is not the only guy to have said that about Chirac.

It is, furthermore, not something that I would regard as an insult to Mr. Chirac.

There's much less flattering parts to that, like.. Saddam's not white, so as far as Europe is concerned, he must be good. (If you glance over at Mr. Mugabe you see where he gets that, and it is not entirely wrong, it's just, well, in this case, he's one to talk!)