The story goes that Rockefeller was about to walk out the door in shabby clothes. His wife said, "You won't impress anyone in that outfit."
"Whom do I have to impress?" snapped Rockefeller.
That folklore comes to mind after reading this current headline in the New York Times: "U.S. Must Counteract Image In Muslim World, Panel Says."
They came here and murdered three thousand of us, and it's up to us to impress them. I don't quite get the logic.
You'd think it should be the other way round. They should be required to fix up their image.
Here's more from the Times on the panel's conclusions: "The U.S. must drastically increase and overhaul its public relations to salvage its plummeting image among Muslims and Arabs abroad."
But maybe public relations won't reach people who are busy in another line of work - like driving passenger airplanes into American buildings and planting bombs that kill seven-month-old babies in Israel. Maybe, after everything is weighed and considered, we're right and they're wrong. Can I get me an ?Amen??
Let's try that again. We're right. They're wrong.
In that case, no amount of PR will do any good. There is no reasoning with a culture whose extremists view eternal bliss as not about golden rule righteousness, followed by the shade of heaven's vine and fig tree, but rather suicide/murder, followed by carnal access to 72 virgins. No amount of PR can whitewash a generation so thoroughly brainwashed.
Besides, who cares if they love us? Whom do we have to impress?
We're the United States of America ? and if only tiny Israel could find the chutzpah, the daring, that once made it the little nation that could.
Again from the Times, and that 13-member panel: "Hostility toward Americans has reached shocking levels."
I could have told you that without a panel... and oh dear, there go my vacation plans to Kabul.
You mean they hate us more after 9/11? They hate Israel more after murdering more than a thousand of its people?
"Shocking levels." Now what have we done to upset nearly a fifth of the world? Forgot to do the dishes?
The panel, led by Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel, points the finger partly at... take a guess. This is multiple choice: Denmark. Sweden. Portugal. Umm... Israel?
"What's required is not merely tactical adaptation but strategic, and radical, transformation," says the panel.
Radical transformation. That is diplospeak for "throw Israel to the wolves."
This finding, from a group of academics gathered together by the Bush administration, assumes that the Palestinian Arabs once loved the Jewish people, and then the Jewish people did something bad. Like exist. They hate the Jews. The Jews must be to blame. Or that Osama bin Laden once loved America, and then America did something naughty. Like proclaim liberty. Yes, the fault must be with America.
There's no word in the Times as to a panel from the Muslim world, about concerns for their image in America and Israel. Apparently, there is no discomfort in that part of the world, no need to put on a better face, no instinct to re-evaluate the impression it makes, upon us, when you commit bloodshed in the name of Allah.
The term "shared values" comes up in this article in the Times. The U.S. spent millions on TV commercials about our "shared values" with the Muslim world.
Didn't work. The Muslim world laughed.
Here's a possibility. Maybe we have no shared values. They have their values. We have ours. Never the twain shall meet.
Doesn't mean we have to hate one another. Doesn't mean we have to love one another.
Just leave us alone. We don't bother you on the road to your mosque, and you leave us alone in our churches and synagogues.
How's that for shared values?
"Whom do I have to impress?" snapped Rockefeller.
That folklore comes to mind after reading this current headline in the New York Times: "U.S. Must Counteract Image In Muslim World, Panel Says."
They came here and murdered three thousand of us, and it's up to us to impress them. I don't quite get the logic.
You'd think it should be the other way round. They should be required to fix up their image.
Here's more from the Times on the panel's conclusions: "The U.S. must drastically increase and overhaul its public relations to salvage its plummeting image among Muslims and Arabs abroad."
But maybe public relations won't reach people who are busy in another line of work - like driving passenger airplanes into American buildings and planting bombs that kill seven-month-old babies in Israel. Maybe, after everything is weighed and considered, we're right and they're wrong. Can I get me an ?Amen??
Let's try that again. We're right. They're wrong.
In that case, no amount of PR will do any good. There is no reasoning with a culture whose extremists view eternal bliss as not about golden rule righteousness, followed by the shade of heaven's vine and fig tree, but rather suicide/murder, followed by carnal access to 72 virgins. No amount of PR can whitewash a generation so thoroughly brainwashed.
Besides, who cares if they love us? Whom do we have to impress?
We're the United States of America ? and if only tiny Israel could find the chutzpah, the daring, that once made it the little nation that could.
Again from the Times, and that 13-member panel: "Hostility toward Americans has reached shocking levels."
I could have told you that without a panel... and oh dear, there go my vacation plans to Kabul.
You mean they hate us more after 9/11? They hate Israel more after murdering more than a thousand of its people?
"Shocking levels." Now what have we done to upset nearly a fifth of the world? Forgot to do the dishes?
The panel, led by Edward P. Djerejian, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria and Israel, points the finger partly at... take a guess. This is multiple choice: Denmark. Sweden. Portugal. Umm... Israel?
"What's required is not merely tactical adaptation but strategic, and radical, transformation," says the panel.
Radical transformation. That is diplospeak for "throw Israel to the wolves."
This finding, from a group of academics gathered together by the Bush administration, assumes that the Palestinian Arabs once loved the Jewish people, and then the Jewish people did something bad. Like exist. They hate the Jews. The Jews must be to blame. Or that Osama bin Laden once loved America, and then America did something naughty. Like proclaim liberty. Yes, the fault must be with America.
There's no word in the Times as to a panel from the Muslim world, about concerns for their image in America and Israel. Apparently, there is no discomfort in that part of the world, no need to put on a better face, no instinct to re-evaluate the impression it makes, upon us, when you commit bloodshed in the name of Allah.
The term "shared values" comes up in this article in the Times. The U.S. spent millions on TV commercials about our "shared values" with the Muslim world.
Didn't work. The Muslim world laughed.
Here's a possibility. Maybe we have no shared values. They have their values. We have ours. Never the twain shall meet.
Doesn't mean we have to hate one another. Doesn't mean we have to love one another.
Just leave us alone. We don't bother you on the road to your mosque, and you leave us alone in our churches and synagogues.
How's that for shared values?