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I know my many friends will be deeply disappointed but unfortunately I have to break the news to them today that I shall not be running for the high office of Uachtarán na hÉireann. I am painfully aware of the unvarnished reality that this will come as a further blow to national morale at a time when Mother Ireland faces great peril.
The parallels between Afghanistan and the Vietnam War are growing all the time. Like LBJ, President Obama has a strong interest in social issues and clearly wants to make life better for ordinary citizens of the US. But Lyndon Baines Johnson was brought down by a slow-burning military disaster in a faraway land.
Broken man: LBJ listens to Richard Nixon inaugural speech, January 1969
It’s difficult not to see the funny side of the incident where the “journalist” threw a shoe at President Bush in Baghdad ( see also previous blog on the subject) and I have to share this piece of badinage with you. It was sent to me unofficially by an apparatchik in our own current regime who was taking a break from, er, saving the country. (more…)
