High life
Battle stars
Taki
New York It's gloating time in the Big Bagel. One month after the end of the turkey shoot, people are still bragging about having `kicked Saddam's ass' and shops are still selling slogans extolling the virtues of war. And why not? If anyone ever deserved the boot it's that pig of a leader, although what bothers me is that these are the same mer- chants who got rich marketing anti-war paraphernalia back in the early Seventies.
Although I was a dove until the shooting began in January, I now realise the folly of my thinking. Saddam had to go, the trouble of course being that he's still around. Well, only barely. And this is what bothers me about the media. Most of the liberal press and all three networks were unanimous in calling for more time for sanctions to work. Like the buffoonish Teddy Kennedy and the opportunist John Kerry (a cousin of Ali Forbes and just as muddled in his thoughts as some of Ali's sentences) they predicted tens of thousands of allied dead and at times echoed Alexander Cockburn who predicted an Iraqi victory.
Now the liberal bores are screaming for Bush to wage more of the very thing they pilloried him for doing in the first place. In fact what they're trying to do is to turn a brilliant victory on the battlefield into a political defeat. Mind you, it's par for the course. The populace may feel good about what took place down in the Gulf, but it's the blow-dried lefties in the media that are doing all the complaining. Egad, how they posture. Peter Jennings, husband of Kati Marton, a professional Hungarian and good friend of one Richard Cohen, of the mendacious Washington Post, is among the toughest-sounding. At times he's so tough he gets hate mail from Mother Teresa. But not to worry. Bush is a good man, and I think, or at least hope, that he's doing the right thing. Saddam will be toppled by his very own.
Ironically, George Bush is once again being called a wimp. This from people who would have asked Custer to give time for sanctions to work just as the Injuns sorry, native Americans — came galloping into Little Big Horn. Bush is one of the few American Presidents to see action in wartime. The un-elected Gerald Ford won ten battle stars serving on an aircraft carri- er, but that's about it. Teddy Roosevelt, the greatest numero uno ever, was the last one before Bush to get elected as well as shot at. Franklin Roosevelt was 4-F, Eisenhower led from behind, and Lyndon Johnson lied like a rug and got himself a bronze star. The closest the Texan flim-flam man got to combat was an hour's flying time from where the action was. President Nixon, on the other hand, spent four years in the Pacific, and if he didn't see too much bang- bang it was because his outfit was lucky.
Bush was the youngest pilot in the US air force, and was shot down while on a mis- sion against the Japanese mainland. The fact his navigator did not survive has been held against him by some media types. Again, par for the course. And speaking of non-wimps, next week I'm giving a blast for Captain Chuck Pfeifer's 50th birthday at Elaine's. My only rule is no draft-dodgers, no leftists, no wimps. And no politicians. It's going to be rather a small party. Next week I will tell you all about it, and also about the social recession that has hit the Big Bagel with a vengeance.
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