Bushwah

Mind you, there are some things to be said in favour of George Bush. Given that he's an imperialist religious maniac, just think of the state the world would be in if he was all that and efficient with it. It's not inconceivable that a slightly smarter president might have succeeded in the Iraq adventure and given America confidence that it could do whatever the hell it wanted to, which would really have been cause for general panic. If you're in a small pub with a mean drunk, you want it to be someone who falls over a lot.

And on the Statute of Limitations thing, I was in Ireland a couple of years ago for a conference and we were given a reception just out of Dublin at the Royal Hospital Kilmainham, a marvellous seventeenth-century pile. Taking a flute of champagne from the waiter, I remarked to him "Nice place you've got here."

He replied "It's not ours. They built it."

He could, I suppose, have meant it the way Lenin did in London when he was pointing out to a friend "This is their British Museum" and "This is their houses of parliament," meaning by 'them' not the English but the capitalists, but I tend to doubt it.

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