William Safire attempts to parse the apparent rift between Bush pere and Bush fils on Iraq policy today. It’s kind of a contorted column, arguing that there can’t possibly really be disagreement between the old Bush and the new, but admitting that, gee, that’s what it looks like. The weirdest note in the column, though, is the suggestion that the whole thing is “high political drama worthy of a Shakespeare.”
If either Bush could express himself with the skill of Shakespeare’s most insignicant spear-carrier, maybe Safire would have had a point. Given that these are probably the nation’s two least eloquent presidents in memory, and given that our current leader is barely able to get out a sentence without mangling the language, suggesting that any business between the two of them has even the remotest Bardic whiff is beyond ludicrous.
Hamlet’s advice to the players, remember, was to “speak the speech” “trippingly on the tongue” — not “tripping over the tongue.”
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