WIth Apologies to Mutt and Jeff
Today is Wednesday, 5 July 2006.
Kim Jong-Il and George W. Bush: Now ain’t they as fine a pair of bookends as one could want.
Both are beholden to Daddy for their positions. Both are given to bluster, temper tantrums, abusing subordinates, and generally throwing their weight around. Both control nuclear weapons (though Bush thinks he has “nukular” weapons). Both delude themselves they are World Historical figures who bestride this narrow world like colossi.
Unfortunately, Bush commands enough nuclear/nukular weapons to destroy the world.
Kim and Bush resemble a well-tuned comedy team, such as Mutt and Jeff, Laurel and Hardy, or Martin and Lewis. Kim pretends he has state-of-the-art missiles posing a mortal threat to the USA/USE/USSA, Bush pretends to believe him, attempts to frighten the American public and threatens retaliation, and then Kim frightens his people with Bush’s bluster.
The best intelligence publicly available suggests that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been working on the Taep'o-dong 2 (TD-2) ballistic missile since 1987. If this is the case, the fact that both test firings seem to have failed miserably does not indicate a high threat level, to say the least.
(The TD-2 reminds your author of the PGM-19 Jupiter, an intermediate-range ballistic missile deployed by the USAF in the late ‘50s in Italy and Turkey (which incidentally was a main component in the Soviet decision to deploy equivalents in Cuba). One USAF official said of the Jupiter: “It’s guaranteed to hit Moscow, if it doesn’t blow up on the launch pad”.)
Most likely, this whole Independence Day flap has been a propaganda exercise on both sides. Certainly, Warlord W Bush is lusting after anything which can divert public attention from his abject failures in the conquest of Iraq.
But their fingers still caress their triggers, and, for some, happiness is a warm gun.
_______________________________
[Playful note to “Anonymous/Name Withheld”: DPRK can also stand for “Devolutionally Perverted Rathole of the Kims”. See, HH can lampoon the names of nations other than the USA/USE/USSA!]
_______________________________
Coming Attractions:
What or whom is a “rogue nation”?
What or whom is “an axis of evil”?
Professions of Politics and War (response to RtR)
Presidential Picks (response to Q of Clayton)
The Museum of the Bourgeois is a full-service entity. We aim to please. If you wish the blogmaster to bloviate on a particular topic, COME ON DOWN!
______________________________
On this day in history:
1889 – Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau, poet, born (d. 1963); one "…to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City..." – Edith Wharton
1935 – National Labor Relations Act signed into law by FDR
1937 – Debut of Spam (the luncheon meat)
1962 – Algeria wrests independence from France
1975 – Arthur Ashe becomes first Black male’s singles champion at Wimbledon
Kim Jong-Il and George W. Bush: Now ain’t they as fine a pair of bookends as one could want.
Both are beholden to Daddy for their positions. Both are given to bluster, temper tantrums, abusing subordinates, and generally throwing their weight around. Both control nuclear weapons (though Bush thinks he has “nukular” weapons). Both delude themselves they are World Historical figures who bestride this narrow world like colossi.
Unfortunately, Bush commands enough nuclear/nukular weapons to destroy the world.
Kim and Bush resemble a well-tuned comedy team, such as Mutt and Jeff, Laurel and Hardy, or Martin and Lewis. Kim pretends he has state-of-the-art missiles posing a mortal threat to the USA/USE/USSA, Bush pretends to believe him, attempts to frighten the American public and threatens retaliation, and then Kim frightens his people with Bush’s bluster.
The best intelligence publicly available suggests that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has been working on the Taep'o-dong 2 (TD-2) ballistic missile since 1987. If this is the case, the fact that both test firings seem to have failed miserably does not indicate a high threat level, to say the least.
(The TD-2 reminds your author of the PGM-19 Jupiter, an intermediate-range ballistic missile deployed by the USAF in the late ‘50s in Italy and Turkey (which incidentally was a main component in the Soviet decision to deploy equivalents in Cuba). One USAF official said of the Jupiter: “It’s guaranteed to hit Moscow, if it doesn’t blow up on the launch pad”.)
Most likely, this whole Independence Day flap has been a propaganda exercise on both sides. Certainly, Warlord W Bush is lusting after anything which can divert public attention from his abject failures in the conquest of Iraq.
But their fingers still caress their triggers, and, for some, happiness is a warm gun.
_______________________________
[Playful note to “Anonymous/Name Withheld”: DPRK can also stand for “Devolutionally Perverted Rathole of the Kims”. See, HH can lampoon the names of nations other than the USA/USE/USSA!]
_______________________________
Coming Attractions:
What or whom is a “rogue nation”?
What or whom is “an axis of evil”?
Professions of Politics and War (response to RtR)
Presidential Picks (response to Q of Clayton)
The Museum of the Bourgeois is a full-service entity. We aim to please. If you wish the blogmaster to bloviate on a particular topic, COME ON DOWN!
______________________________
On this day in history:
1889 – Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau, poet, born (d. 1963); one "…to whom every great line of poetry was a sunrise, every sunset the foundation of the Heavenly City..." – Edith Wharton
1935 – National Labor Relations Act signed into law by FDR
1937 – Debut of Spam (the luncheon meat)
1962 – Algeria wrests independence from France
1975 – Arthur Ashe becomes first Black male’s singles champion at Wimbledon
posted by HH at 11:47 AM
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