What PMM said.

I'm never sure whether it's okay to be mean about President Bush around Americans, y'know? Whether it's one of those 'we can mock, but outsiders better not' situations, like with family?

Personally, as long as the tone is commiserating rather than mocking, I'm okay with it. I don't think one has to be an American to see that our President has an ass where his brain should be, and I sure as hell don't consider him "family." (And now, having implied "Bush" and "family" in the same sentence, I must go and shower for several days.)

[eta: And hell yes on the difference between Bush and America. Say whatever the hell you want about Bush and his administration, but don't assume that anything about them applies to the rest of us.]

I should also note that I also bristle at people (not you Allyson--I've never seen you do this--some of my non B.org friends) who go off on countries or people who DARE say something negative about the US. For a while there, Canada was getting a lot of shit, to the point where I just wanted to take these people and stomp some sense into them.

And then stomp a little more for the fun of it.

I think that could just mean he needs his faith to have the strength to deal with the job, rather than you must be Christian to be president.

Yeah. He should have said something like this. And then stopped talking.

I'm never sure whether it's okay to be mean about President Bush around Americans, y'know? Whether it's one of those 'we can mock, but outsiders better not' situations, like with family?

Personally, I'm at the point where all I can do is sigh and say "Yeah, I know."

"He's an ass."

"Yep."

"He's stupid."

"Look, you're not telling me anything I don't already know, okay? Lots of us aren't happy about it."

But I'm also on the "Mock the man, not the office" train.

That's what my biggest worry is, I think. That people will confuse criticism of a certain action by a certain administration as criticism of what that administration represents.

To be honest though, Americans are more or less the only people I feel this with. I'd never worry about pissing off my French friends by saying that Chirac is a philanderer or Australians by saying that there's a certain amount of racism in their administration.

I think my bias on this may come from the media rather than any conversations I've had with people, which is not a good thing.

I don't think he could have said something like that, because I don't think he believes it.

ETA: That was to Cashmere

I'm wondering if the sudden temperature spike and the fact that it soon will be dropping like a coyote off a cliff has something to do with my horrible backache.

Yeah, probably not.

I have an unusual sitch, here. I bring a lot of foreign national hires here. I feel like they're guests at my dinner table, it's considered an honor to be here.

And there's been a couple of times when some bureaucratic nonsense has created a brief snag in computer access or something, and some asswipe takes a slam at America for the problem.

As if we as a country voted to make the Firewall software unweildy.

This is what bristles, not so much the criticism of "the US Administration is fucking shit up in the Middle East" and such.

But when I've written a completely plain contract and asked you if you understand it, and you sign it, and then argue after the fact that I've cheated you out of money because you didn't understand it, please don't EVER say, "Americans..." under your breath because you can't take responsibility for your shit.

Heather, yeah. But I'm having trouble letting go of my fantasies.