Nobody apart from Dick Cheney still believes that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when we invaded that country in 2003. But who knew? Mike Huckabee is firmly in the Cheney camp. Mixing evangelical fervor with foreign intelligence savvy, Huck remarked that WMD are like Easter eggs: you don’t always find them all. Further demonstrating his international statecraft and fitness to assume the presidency, Huck drew the following insights: diplomatic ties are like Christmas ornaments because they’re fragile; foreigners are like saints’ days because there are too many of them; and foreign leaders are like fish on Friday because they smell funny.
The UN Human Rights Council condemned Israel’s blockade of Gaza for the third time this week. The Arab press calls the Israeli policy of closing Gaza off from the world a crime of the first degree, genocide, or worse. But everybody forgot that the Egyptians had long ago sealed off Gaza’s other border. The Gazan embargo was a joint Arab-Israeli venture, at least until the Gazans got fed up the other day and burst through the Egyptian side. They rightly judged the Egyptians less likely to shoot at them. Who knew? The Gazans are the real Jews of the Mid-East. They’re friendless in Gaza and nobody likes them, not even the other Arabs.
President Bush’s economic stimulus package includes meaty tax cuts for big business and the rich, and green stamps for everybody else. That’s hardly surprising considering the hearty blend of ideological superstition and greedy self-interest behind all Bush administration economic policy. But who knew? The Democrats cheerfully participate in the president’s scam. When told that green stamps no longer even existed, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is said to have replied, "Let them eat cake."
France is the land of amour, public nudity, and hot babes. But who knew? President Sarkozy’s public conquest of singer and super-model Carla Bruni knocked seventeen points off his approval rating. Photographs of the couple in beachwear arouse nothing but disgust. Is it the Mutt and Jeff contrast between the diminutive Sarko and the long trim lines of Bruni in a bikini that strikes the French, who have a horror of appearing ridiculous, as objectionable? The gold chain sported by bare-chested Sarko, earning him the nom de guerre "President Bling Bling"? You read it here first: the problem lies with Bruni’s singing, which sounds like a bad imitation of Marilyn Monroe with a sore throat. That and her outspoken support for polygamy and polyandry. Both are perfectly OK from the French point of view but one doesn’t have the bad taste to admit it, at least outside the bedroom.
Who knew... that Bill Clinton would be offended when John Kerry accused him of abusing the truth about the Obama record? "I’m not taking the bait today" Clinton huffily said when confronted with Kerry’s remark. He recalled with hurt how he’d campaigned for Kerry in ’04. But for the Clintons lying is the family business. Bill, a proven liar on everything from sex to pot smoking, ought to be comfortable with his own mendacity by now. We expect him to dissemble, misrepresent, prevaricate, and fib at every turn; why else has his nose grown so much since we first met him? It would be far less surprising if he took umbrage at being called honest, which would be a real whopper.