COLUMBUS: President Bush kinda pulled the rug out from under St. Patrick’s celebration today. You know, all this War talk is liable to drive an Irishman to drink.
Our President announced that Saddam Hussein has 48 hours to get out of Dodge. Folks are hoping he will hitch a ride tomorrow with the UN inspectors.
There’s not much chance Saddam will change his mind, but Turkey changed theirs. They agreed to let our Army march through their country after all. They didn’t want to lose out on that $15 Billion offer. They came close; Ohio’s Governor offered to let ’em go by way of Cleveland for ten.
Historic quotes from Will Rogers: (on diplomacy, war, France and other European countries)
“Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as Soldiers are for finishing it. You take diplomacy out of war and the thing would fall flat in a week… England, France and Germany have Diplomats that have had the honor of starting every war they have had in their lifetime. Ours are not so good – they are Amateurs – they have only talked us into one.” Saturday Evening Post, June 9, 1928
“There’s the one thing no nation can ever accuse us of and that is Secret Diplomacy. Our foreign dealings are an Open Book, generally a Check Book.” WA #45, October 21, 1923
“There is only one way we could be in worse with Europeans, and that is to have helped them out in two wars instead of one.” Saturday Evening Post, July 10, 1926
“You know, of course, that we stand in Europe about like a Horse Thief. Now I want to report to you that that is not so. We don’t stand like a Horse Thief abroad. Whoever told you we did is flattering us. We don’t stand as good as a Horse Thief. They knew what you were sore at them for.
I have purposely looked for combinations that were friendly toward each other, and I have yet to find any two that wasent at heart ready to pounce on each other if they thought they could get away with it… France and England think just as much of each other as two rival bands of Chicago Bootleggers… A Frenchman and an Italian love each other just about like Minneapolis and St. Paul. Spain and France have the same regard for each other as Fort Worth and Dallas.
Russia hates everybody so bad it would take her a week to pick out the one she hates most. Turkey has been laying off three months now without any war, and Peace is just about killing them. Greece has some open time that they are trying to fill in. They will take on anybody but Turkey; they are about cured of them.” Saturday Evening Post, August 26, 1926
“I would like to stay in Europe long enough to find some country that don’t blame America for everything in the world that’s happened to ’em in the last fifteen years – debts, depression, disarmament, disease, fog, famine or frostbite…. The birth rate is falling off so I am going to get out of here before we get blamed.” DT # 1718, Jan. 26, 1932
“Nice, France: It’s pronounced neece, not nice; they have no word for nice in French.” Sat. Evening Post, August 28, 1927
“A bunch of American tourists were hissed and stoned yesterday in France, but not until they had finished buying.” DT #4, August 2, 1926
“I would say to France, ‘You don’t seem to think you owe us anything. What we did for you, you think we owed you. Now if it wasn’t worth anything, why let it go. But, listen, if we wasn’t worth anything in this War, why don’t expect us in the next one.’
Any person or any nation will break a neck for each other if they think it’s appreciated. But the thing about this French thing is not the money. They don’t even in their own hearts appreciate, or even like us.” WA #112, Feb. 1, 1925