I check my Aussie friends’ blogs each morning, and am always treated to outstanding commentary. They get an early jump on us Yanks, so have had time to sift through many things out on the web while we sleep. This morning, Slatts had a pointer to something excerpted from a new book by P J O’Rourke:
Frankly, nothing concerning foreign policy ever occurred to me until the middle of the last decade. I’d been writing about foreign countries and foreign affairs and foreigners for years. But you can own dogs all your life and not have “dog policy”.
You have rules, yes – Get off the couch! – and training, sure. We want the dumb creatures to be well behaved and friendly. So we feed foreigners, take care of them, give them treats, and, when absolutely necessary, whack them with a rolled-up newspaper.
That was as far as my foreign policy thinking went until the middle 1990s, when I realised America’s foreign policy thinking hadn’t gone that far.
I think that’s the point Dubya was trying to make. He has a different approach.