June 07, 2004

President Bush and French President Jacques Chirac participate in a wreath laying ceremony at the Normandy American Cemetery in Colleville-sur-Mer, France, on Sunday
The look on President Bush's face says it all, doesn't it?
Poor President Bush. Looks like he has gas from Jacques's dinner!

Bush Honors D-Day Veterans in Normandy by Dana Milbank (Bush-hater extraordinaire!)

President Bush Sunday marked the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion of Normandy with a conciliatory pledge to Europeans who have questioned the American commitment to the transatlantic alliance forged in World War II: "America would do it again, for our friends."
[OK, and Dana Milbanks is off and running!
He's got the Axis of Weasel questioning our commitment, not vice versa! Unreal!--Jen]

The president appeared here at the American cemetery for what will be the last major commemoration of D-Day with veterans of Operation Overlord, who are reaching the end of their lives. Bush spoke of the hundreds of octogenarian veterans seated on the cliff here over Omaha Beach, between the rows of crosses and stars marking the graves of their comrades who never came home.

"Generations to come will know what happened here, but these men heard the guns," Bush said. "Visitors will always pay respects at this cemetery, but these veterans come looking for a name, and remembering faces and voices from a lifetime ago."

Bush blended his remembrance with a brief tribute to former President Ronald Reagan, who died Saturday at age 93. "Twenty summers ago, another American president came here to Normandy to pay tribute to the men of D-Day," Bush said. "He was a courageous man, himself, and a gallant leader in the cause of freedom, and today we honor the memory of Ronald Reagan."

Reagan's 1984 Pointe du Hoc speech marking the 40th anniversary of D-Day was memorable . "These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc," Reagan said then. "These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war."

Bush's speech, though filled with tenderness for the veterans and their long-lost comrades, made no attempt at soaring. His delivery was subdued, so soft that some in the audience had difficulty hearing him despite the amplifiers. As he did in his speech on the same spot on Memorial Day two years ago, Bush told a series of war stories, many with themes of religion and bravery.
[Who knows what mood President Bush was in?
He and Laura had to get through a "private dinner" with Jacques and his wife, she of the lacquered hair, the night before and Lord knows how awful that was!
All I know it that it must have taken all the effort Bush had not to retch in the presence of Jacque ChIraq's swarminess!
An heroic effort, if you ask me.--Jen]

He recalled Franklin Roosevelt's D-Day prayer in 1944, the "crucifixion" of dead paratroopers on telephone poles, and the bibles found in the wreckage on the shore. He spoke of dying soldiers who called out "mother, help me," and said of the dead: "We pray in the peace of this cemetery that they have reached the far shore of God's mercy."

Bush also spoke of the waning days of the surviving veterans. "Now has come a time of reflection, with thoughts of another horizon, and the hope of reunion with the boys you knew," he told the old soldiers, many of them tearful and surrounded by family. "I want each of you to understand you will be honored ever and always by the country you served and by the nations you freed."

French President Jacques Chirac joined Bush for a wreath laying ceremony at the American cemetery and then preceded Bush at the microphone. "France will never forget," he said, recalling France's "debt to America, its everlasting friend." Chirac declared that "America is our eternal ally" and said of those buried here: "They are now our sons, too."
[I've never heard so much bloviating inanity in my life! Jock's a real tool!--J.T.]

Chirac waded delicately
[B.S.! Sheer Milbank spin!--Jen]
into the recent standoff between his government and the Bush administration over the Iraq war. Invoking the importance of the United Nations, which France has used to thwart U.S. plans for Iraq, the French leader said: "Our two peoples have stood shoulder to shoulder in the brotherhood of blood spilled, in defense of a certain ideal of mankind, of a certain vision of the world: the vision that lies at the heart of the United Nations Charter."

What wholesale merde!
Jacques laid it on thick in the most pompous, holier-than-thou, arrogant manner possible and it was clear that everything he said was all lies and exaggerations.
All I could think was, "Why did he have to come?"

In an apparent reference to what the French and other Europeans have called Bush's "unilateralism," Chirac said this generation has a duty to build a society with "the hallmark of respect and dialogue, of tolerance and solidarity that was the quintessence of the struggle we are commemorating today."

As if WWII were ended by anything less than military might and soldiers meeting soldiers in mortal combat! Tolerance--yeah, right! Tell that to the French Jews that were still being sent off to the Nazi camps 2 months after D-Day! And "solidarity? There was that dissonance between the Free French, the Resistance and Vichy France. Respect? As in respect for borders and sovreignity? Ask Hitler! Finally, dialogue? The only thing the U.N. has that the League of Nations doesn't is that it has the backing of the U.S. and to my mind, we are the lesser for it on the world scene. Altogether, Jacques's little speech was a nightmare! Not content with haranguing Bush twice--once "privately at dinner and again publicly at Colleville-sur-mer, ChIraq did it again later in the day, with his buddy Gerhard Schroeder looking on. Quel trou de bal!

Bush, who was lectured on Saturday night by Chirac on the folly of linking World War II to the Iraq war, [The nerve of that Frog! Let's hope that President Bush didn't cave to him completely and was just being polite. How awful!--Jen] avoided such comparisons today, instead celebrating the friendship with France. "Our great alliance of freedom is strong, and it is still needed today," Bush said. Telling the story of a Collesville woman who married an American G.I. who fought on Omaha Beach, Bush produced chuckles by declaring it "another fine moment in Franco-American relations."

This was a wonderful Reaganesque moment!
The audience laughed, as did I at home.
Good one, President Bush!
All in all, the ceremony was very nice (after Jacques tried to dress down our President) and I think the vets were touched again.
But I hope that Bush doesn't have to touch French soil again if he doesn't want to.
When he said, "America would do it again, for our friends," it almost went without saying,"...with France's problems, let's hope we don't have to!"
Let's look on the bright side, however; maybe Bush was telling old Jacques in his subtle way that since the French aren't our friends and haven't been for a long time, we won't be coming to their aid. Works for me!
Why spill more American blood for these ungrateful weasels?
And it hit me like a ton of bricks, that the French hadn't done very much to fight the Nazis off in the first place and weren't that pleased (and still aren't) to have been liberated.
Looking at those Normandie beaches, I was reminded of that other beach operation on the French coast--Dunkirk at the beginning of the war.
There, the British were forced to employ a flotilla of civilian boats to rescue 300,000 of their soldiers who were left high and dry when France capitulated and joined the Reich.