Nov 19, 2008 03:45 PM
3,808
Enter your username and password.
New York, 1:51 AM
Wed Feb 10
55 posts in the last 24 hours
America, as we've learned, has a big PR problem. The rest of the world doesn't like us so much! Our current president is something of a laughingstock, you see, and we have this problem with expecting others to live up to the ideals we espouse as we fail to live up to them ourselves. You can see how that might bug people, right? Thankfully we're done with the Bush administration. Listen to how little Bush is respected by the Russians and French:
With Russian tanks only 30 miles from Tbilisi on August 12, Mr Sarkozy told Mr Putin that the world would not accept the overthrow of Georgia’s Government. According to Mr Levitte, the Russian seemed unconcerned by international reaction. “I am going to hang Saakashvili by the balls,” Mr Putin declared.
Mr Sarkozy thought he had misheard. “Hang him?” — he asked. “Why not?” Mr Putin replied. “The Americans hanged Saddam Hussein.”
Mr Sarkozy, using the familiar tu, tried to reason with him: “Yes but do you want to end up like [President] Bush?” Mr Putin was briefly lost for words, then said: “Ah — you have scored a point there.”
Oh man, Putin totally zinged us! Zinged by Putin!
That won't happen now that Barack Obama is in charge. No, he commands respect. Another added bonus of an Obama presidency? When people try to zing him, it just shows how boorish and lame the zinger is! First Silvio Berlusconi made that lame "suntanned" joke, and everyone was like, what? Now the Poles are doing it! Polish people are making jokes about us! This aggression cannot stand!
"Poland has been forced to deny its foreign minister 'joked' that President-Elect Barack Obama's grandparents were cannibals. In an episode that could potentially strain relations between Warsaw and Washington, Radek Sikorski, an Oxford-educated politician who has lived in the US, was reported to have made the jibe by an opposition politician, Ryszard Czarnecki. Writing in his blog, Mr Czarnecki, an MEP, quoted the foreign minister as saying: 'Have you heard that Obama may have a Polish connection? His grandfather ate a Polish missionary.' A spokesman for the Polish foreign office conceded that Mr Sikorski had made the controversial comment, but denied that the foreign minister had intended to insult Mr Obama, whose father was Kenyan."
Sheesh, Poland. We're not letting you in any more of our coalitions of the willing. Is it so funny now?
Send an email to Alex Pareene, the author of this post, at alexp@gawker.com.
Original material is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution.
Start a new discussion