President Bush’s unintentionally revealing comment that “we get oil from some parts of the world and they simply don't like us," (“Bush touts alternative energy”, 9-4) reminded me of the old Bill Cosby joke about the Lone Ranger who, surrounded by hostile Indians, turns to Tonto and says, “This looks bad for us,” to which his sidekick replies, “What do you mean ‘us’, paleface?”
The top sources of US crude oil imports are Mexico, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, and Venezuela, which are all countries where the majority of citizens like Americans generally, but despise Bush.
In fact Bush has placed himself in the unique position of not only being loathed by a majority of Americans, but also by the majority of the citizens in the countries that have long been America’s allies.
Having recently returned from Europe I can attest to the fact that it is not “us” they hate but Bush; its not “us” they are reluctant to partner with in order to solve international problems but the Bush administration which is widely perceived to be untrustworthy, unserious, corrupt and incompetent.
Neither Richard Nixon during Watergate nor Bill Clinton during his impeachment was reviled by as many people as Bush, and Bush evidently knows it.
It is rumored that Bush now pins his hopes on the favorable judgment of history. But at the rate he is going Bush will probably be remembered as being less like the unfairly maligned-in-his-time Harry Truman and more like Warren Harding—a frivolous man completely out of his depths: literally a “Bush-league” president.
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