Holding Hands With George

I often like a nasty joke. I’m perfectly willing to make fun of the pervert Michael Jackson because I believe he is a pervert and deserves all the disrespect I can muster. Nonetheless, I’ve been sort of nonplussed at the garbage and the tawdry remarks and snickers that President Bush has drawn about his holding hands in the Arab fashion with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah this past week.

I’m not especially well informed and yet I knew from the moment I saw it what he was up to. Someone on his staff had informed or reminded him that this was a good way to show respect in Saudi culture and the President had decided to go for it. He needed to curry some favor, didn’t he, as badly as every foul-minded disrespectful “my president must be a homo” American yokel who is crying for lower oil prices this year and yet doesn’t want to give up a fucking thing for it? Well, the President gave up something for it, so shut the fuck up, willya?

As much as I despise Bush and have not witnessed him perform very many acts of grace or of respect toward “the other guy’s” culture, I knew from the git-go (as should everyone) that Bush isn’t usually “sensitive” or a man of the world to any degree. So if he was behaving oddly with the handholding, he was clearly up to something, most likely practical or diplomatic. Most likely, kissing up to somebody to get this country some cheaper oil! Diplomats and Presidents are allowed to behave that way in order to get along with the world. I give him credit for it. If we went to war every time Joe Sixpack thought we’d been insulted or rudely cut off in traffic, Bush would be an even more warmongering president than I’ve found him to be, and he’s pretty bad as it is!

Jay Leno and the other comedians, it’s their job to do this kind of sniggering and grinning and trying to make everything into a joke about somebody’s penis, but I don’t understand why these shallow newsreaders on TV found it so amusing. Oh, that's right, it's because they're shallow and not news professionals. I’d like to have seen someone doing their jobs as reporters the first few times the handholding was shown by explaining in an ordinary tone of voice what they’re just now bothering to explain many days later, that it was a cultural thing, perfectly ordinary in the Arab world.

It’s ordinary in other parts of the world, too, though not in Texas. Not everyone on the planet is afraid of showing affection. It’s bad enough that Joe Sixpack in the 21st century is still such an ass-scratching hick, but that these college-educated News Shills do it, too (just Mr. Regular Guy, thet’s me!) makes me feel I’m living in the same kind of backward caveman country we accuse Iraq and other Muslim countries of being. It gives me the shivers that some people in ALL countries are apparently so ignorant and allowed to be so damn proud of it.

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