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Strategies & Market Trends : India Coffee House -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JPR who wrote (9423)	11/7/1999 8:56:00 AM
From: JPR	Respond to of 12475

George Bush JR His interview smirk -- that anti-intellectual bravado -- was jarring. Has he grown so accustomed to getting things easily -- Yale, the National Guard, lucrative business deals -- that he expects family connections to carry him through here? Name That General! Related Articles Op-Ed Columns Archive Forum Join a Discussion on Maureen Dowd WASHINGTON -- There's a wonderful old Calvin Trillin essay about how he and his wife, Alice, would give each other global hot spots for Christmas. If Calvin unwrapped a map of Iran, with the message "Leave It to Me," he was free not to keep up with news on Iran, or figure how to pronounce the names of Iranian dictators and generals. Alice would read everything and inform her husband only if Iran was about to start a Worldwide Nuclear Conflagration. A global hot spot, the writer observed, was like "some dreadful old uncle who is always alarming the family with emergencies that are invariably described as beyond solution." I want the same deal with the president. If I'm not up to the daily strain of distinguishing between Gen. Muzaffar Usmani and Gen. Khwaja Ziauddin, the guy elected to be better be. Once again, W. has given an interview on foreign affairs that seems willfully clueless. Although the coup in Pakistan had been front-page news for weeks, he drew a blank on the name of its leader, outrageously declaring: Vacilation based on ignorance---JPR "The new Pakistani general, he's just been elected -- not elected, this guy took over office. It appears this guy is going to bring stability to the country and I think that's good news for the subcontinent." As W. painfully reached to retrieve the name of the Pakistani leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, you could almost hear the music swelling from the Regis Philbin quiz show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire." But unlike the stumped contestants on that show, Mr. Bush was not allowed to call a friend for help. ("Yo, Condi!") "I can't name the general," he stammered on, before going generic with a final try: "General." Mr. Bush has tried to blame "gotcha" journalism rather than his failure to do his homework. But the Boston TV reporter did not ask trick questions about obscure spots like Burkina Faso, or try to trip up W. on the difference between Iran and Irian. ("Yo, Condi!") If W. had been reading the newspaper closely the last few weeks, he could have aced his quiz. India and Pakistan were central to the recent debate on the nuclear test ban treaty, and India's prime minister -- whose name also escaped Mr. Bush -- has been in office a year and a half. Mr. Bush was also unable to name the leader of Chechnya, long one of the diciest pieces of the crumbling Soviet empire. He correctly provided part of the name of the president of Taiwan, "Lee," but it sounded suspiciously like a lucky guess. The encounter was reminiscent of that famous Roger Mudd interview with an utterly inarticulate Teddy Kennedy. Men who are running largely because of their last name sometimes trip over their entitlement. The Texas governor had the cornered look of a man who has been winging it too long, and hiding behind his advisers' skirts too long. He let himself be rolled on an interview he should have seen coming. The question has been hanging out there for months about whether Bush the Younger knows enough about the world to deal with all the loons, coups and wars that spring up like twisters across the post-cold-war plains. His intensive foreign affairs coaching (which must have included Global Hot Spots 101) supposedly began last winter, yet the gaffes keep coming. So it was natural to try to ascertain whether he was studying or slacking. Has his huge advantage in money and family made him so cocky he doesn't care about the gaps in his knowledge? His interview smirk -- that anti-intellectual bravado -- was jarring. Has he grown so accustomed to getting things easily -- Yale, the National Guard, lucrative business deals -- that he expects family connections to carry him through here? President Bush had a passion for foreign policy. "You couldn't get him to go to an education briefing with Lamar Alexander, but he'd spend three days with some two-bit dictator from Sri Lanka," recalled an official in the Bush White House. But when the president was accused of knowing heaps more about Berlin, Germany, than Berlin, New Hampshire, his press secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, began carrying around an index card with the price of eggs and milk and gas. W. can try an index card with names of mutinous generals, or scrawl them on his shirt cuff. But he should remember that by the time his father got his index cards, it was already too late. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------