The reception of a book and a speech can tell you something about how some others see some of us.  This is generalizing from just two examples but I think you will agree that it is instructive. Americans are seen as “UGLY” (generalized), unpopular (George Bush) and attractive and intelligent (Hillary Rodham Clinton).

George W. Bush visited a foreign country in the U.S. yesterday (the UN in NYC) and gave a speech.  The occasion was one in which there was opportunity to give many speeches and so that is what happened.  Many of the more important people who gave important speeches were reported in the New York Times. Some others were mentioned and some were lost in the records kept by the UN and those interested parties to send the written and spoken words as well as countless pictures into the WEB, the repository of much of our history these days.

Mr. Bush’s speech was in defense of his indefensible rush to crush Iraq.  He did this to prevent the world from being attacked with Weapons of Mass Destruction by the Dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein.  Mr. Bush used weapons that destroyed masses of Iraqis, but this was not one of the causes of the chilly reception his speech received at the UN.  His detractors wanted to be the ones to use weapons of diplomatic destruction instead, which would have at least delayed the war.

I was interested to note that Mr. Bush, in his measured parsing of the English Language, asked for money to help clean up the mess he had made.  He could have saved his words and avoided the rebuff he received by taking back his tax cuts for the rich and tax THEM for the lucre they certainly do not need and cannot use in fifty lifetimes of careless spending.  Mr. Bush is continuing, in a genuine unabashed fashion, to play out an agenda that had never appeared in his campaign for the Presidency in 2000.  This is, of course, payback for his ultra conservative and reactionary fundamentalist backers.

Now, as it is noted on the front page of the New York Times today, Hillary Rodham Clinton is doing very well in China with the publication of the Chinese version of her new book.  What is extremely interesting is that her picture on the cover of that book will make her one of the most recognized people in the world since the Chinese are the most people in the world. Despite the revision and censoring that the Chinese publishers did to that book, it will make her one of the most popular people in the world and she should easily be elected to a top position there soon.

How some others see some of us makes for interesting reading in the NY Times – the UGLY, the unpopular and the attractive and intelligent.