Bush Knows What's In A Name

Someday when historians (real historians, not people like this) write the history of George W. Bush's presidency, they will note that he was ferociously besieged with petty indictments of no consequence that were in many cases completely false. This week we have two such instances. One is here. The other is Bush's reference to "Burma" in his UN speech. A gaffe? According to the MSM, yes, absolutely a horrible gaffe - further evidence of Bush's stupidity.

Well, I have been to the place. I have seen the refugee camps on the Thai side of the border that spawl for miles (imagine a third world Southern California, like what you see when you fly into LAX, just with mud huts instead of concrete or steel structures) inhabited by people escaping the SLORC. So count me with this guy. Bush is right. It's BURMA. Myanmar is the phony alternate universe of a cruel gang of loathsome men.

In reality, calling it Burma and not Myanmar shows Bush's political savvy. "Burma" is a politically savvy poke in the eye to the bad guys and a clever hint to the good folks that you are on their side - like calling the city in Northern Ireland Derry and not Londonderry, or refusing to call Vietnam's main city Ho Chi Minh City rather than Saigon. I learned this lesson well when, in 1987, as I, an American, walked the streets of what was officially "Leningrad" talking with a young man, a university student perhaps just 3 or 4 years older than me, who I had just met. I told him that I thought Leningrad was beautiful. He corrected me. "This is St. Petersburg, and, yes, it is beautiful."

The nitwits who insist on "Myanmar" are revealing either their ignorance or their allegiance to the wrong side.