I can never manage to keep my own New Year’s resolutions, so I thought I’d prescribe some for a few of the world’s noteworthy folks who could definitely use a change – if not for their own good, then for the good of others.
1) Robert Mugabe - I believe you’re still a nominal Catholic. Confess your sins and pray that you die before you can commit any more. Your poor country has suffered enough at your hands, and you, and your nation, would be greatly improved by your death.
2) Kim Jong-Il – Except for being Catholic, ditto.
3) Raul Castro – You’re not a complete idiot. I have this vision of you picking up something by Milton Friedman one day, reading it straight through, and shouting “Eureka!”, after which you will tip-toe into your brother’s room, smother him with a pillow, and then declare an end to the obscenity of the Marxist state in Cuba. No time like the present, old fellow!
4) Ahmadinejad (and the entire government of Iran) – Just stop being militant, triumphalist Muslim a$$holes, already. And try to get it through your thick heads that nothing says “psychopathic morons” like that business of hanging allegedly adulterous women and suspected homosexual men from cranes.
5) Barack Obama – Ignore that groveling press, Mr. President, and whatever you do, don’t believe your own propaganda. In fact, you should emulate the ancient Roman practice of having someone constantly whispering in your ear: “All glory is fleeting, and you’re just an exalted ward-heeler who, in a less shabby age, never would have risen higher than the sewer of Cook County politics”.
6) John McCain – Remember this, John: there’s a point beyond which magnanimity becomes vanity, and goodwill becomes masochism. Nobody’s going to rally around a banner that doesn’t stand for anything but good sportsmanship (especially when even that is directed almost exclusively toward the other team). Conservatives have no desire to continue fielding selectively amicable losers. You ran on the McCain ticket and lost; resolve to govern as a Republican senator for a while, and you might go a long way toward redeeming yourself.
Update: Readers are encouraged to suggest their New Year's resolutions for whatever magnificoes strike their fancy.
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What, nothing for Kevin Rudd? Is he that insignificant?
ReplyDeleteNow I have no reason to keep an eye on him. Mehaul
My resolution for Caroline Kennedy: Keep attending charity galas and library fund raisers, dahling, and leave the politics to the down-and-dirty.
ReplyDeleteMy resolution for John McCain: either retire or switch parties the way you know you want to and get it over with for godsakes... there's a reaso RINOs are an endangered species...
ReplyDeleteFor Joe Biden—please, resolve to hold an unrestricted monthly press conference because we'll need the comic relief after suffering through the endless weeks of pronouncements from The One. I want to hear more about President Roosevelt using television to address the citizenry about the depression.
ReplyDeleteFor Putin: Dude, Russia is a second rate power these days. Leave it at that, and take some vacation time to relax, huh?
ReplyDeleteFor Congress: Get over yourselves, you ain't the center of the universe. Better yet, resign en masse, and let other people do the job.
For Hollywood: Entertain. Don't preach.
For Al Gore: You lost in 2000. Get over it.
US Democrats: try to rediscover where the centre is, and govern from there. At present you look to be to the left of the Australian Labor Party, which has its roots in socialism and panders to loopy Greens and Human Rights Bondage Fantasists.
ReplyDeletePaco, I'm not absolutely sure, but having had some Catholic relatives & now some close friends who are Catholic (& I don't mean Easter & Christmas Catholics, I mean feast days & everything), I believe it's considered wrong to pray for your own death - though in Mugabe's case, The Almighty may agree to make an exception.
ReplyDeleteKC: I am thinking of a fascinating essay by the late Russell Kirk which deals with the topic of good and evil as treated in a short story. I don't recall the name of the author of the story, although the action takes place during the Spanish Civil War. A priest is being held prisoner by a particularly sadistic commander, who, in a rare moment of guilt, confesses his sins to the priest. It is clear that the commander is a psychopath who has little or no control over his sadism - who "dwells within himself as in a grave", in a striking phrase that I still remember - and the priest grants him the solace of reconciliation, but encourages the commander to pray for death in battle, because it is the only way that his soul will be free of its particular demons. I don't know whether this is theologically sound, but it seemed to make sense in the context of Mugabe and his (apparently) irremediable blood-lust.
ReplyDelete