Friday, September 28, 2007

Round-a-view with destiny

Slate's Fred Kaplan uses a recently released transcript of a pre-Iraq invasion conversation between President Bush and Spain's then-Prime Minister José María Aznar to give advise on picking the next president. The critical exchange is:

AZNAR: The only thing that worries me about you is your optimism.

BUSH: I'm an optimist because I believe that I'm right. I'm a person at peace with myself. It was our turn to face a serious threat to peace.

Here, in three sentences, is the first lesson on how to assess the current crop of presidential candidates: Don't pick anyone who utters, or seems capable of believing, those three sentences.

"Beware the politician who sees his life as an appointment with destiny," Kaplan writes. "Ditto a president who thinks it's his 'turn' to do anything, much less to go to war and save civilization."

Amen to that.

2 comments:

Undercover Blue said...

Wondered about the translation myself. What's quoted above, however, was more interesting and seemed in character with many other Bush statements before and after his inauguration. Kaplan's admonitions seemed perspicacious.

Undercover Blue said...
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