THINK of me what you will, but I like George W Bush. And I will miss him when he is gone.
I can sense a lot of eyebrows hitting the roof and jaws dropping to the floor in disbelief as you read this, but I had to come out of the closet.
So here goes. ‘My name is Rupali Karekar and I (actually) like American President George W Bush.’
Don’t get me wrong. I am not a fan of the unpopular Bush doctrine, nor do I support the Iraq war or any other policies which he has thrust upon this unwilling world.
But, there is another side to his personality, more colourful than what meets the naked eye. The guy cracks me up!
Like for instance, he is clueless to the point of being likeable.
Let’s scratch our heads for a minute here and name at least one other leader of his stature, who has suffered from foot-in-mouth disease for such a long span of time.
Is there any other leader who has donned one of the highest offices in the world and consistently displayed such little knowledge of world economics, politics and cultures.
Is there anyone else who is unrattled by worldwide criticism (except Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe) and unabashedly sporting about the jokes that are cracked at his expense? Has anyone else contributed to the world of political humour the way Mr Bush has?
I guess not. Some of his quotes will go down history as classics, like when he said: “They misunderestimated me”. What does that mean? Or “I am the master of low expectations”. Huh?
Or the time he juggled difficult scientific theories with ease, like: “Natural gas is hemispheric. I like to call it hemispheric in nature because it is a product that we can find in our neighbourhoods.” LOL.
Mr Bush is also genuine - genuinely incapable of being the most powerful man in the world. Because he is too friendly and naive. Clearly, he lacks the diplomacy needed to appear clean in the murky world of politics.
Let’s, for instance, consider the time he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at the 2006 G-8 summit. Germany’s relationship with the US was improving under Mrs Merkel’s leadership after it hit stormy weather under the previous chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.
So, the newly-developed warmth was displayed by Mr Bush, by throwing diplomacy out of the window and giving Mrs Merkel an impromptu back massage.
She recoiled, grimaced, threw up her arms, but manged to smile. Mr Bush backed off, but joked the next time he met her, saying: “No back rubs”. Wow! I wonder whether she was disappointed.
At the G-8 summit this year, he once again forgot protocol and yelled “Amigo! Amigo!” on seeing Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. How does it matter that Mr Berlusconi is Italian and not Spanish. Mr Bush was happy to see his friend, and that was enough.
I am sure the prime minister of Luxemborg also did not mind Mr Bush asking: “Is it all right if I call you a "piece of work’?” Come on, that was a compliment, right?
He is compassionate (“I think we ought to raise the age at which juveniles can have a gun”), understanding (If you say you’re going to do something and don’t do it, that’s trustworthiness”) and a family man (“Laura and I really don’t realise how bright our children is sometimes until we get an objective analysis”).
So, when he finally bows out next month, I will be sad. No more Bushisms to elevate my mood when I am feeling sombre; no more slips of tongue to make me laugh out loud; no more blabber to bring a smile on my face.
I can not imagine president-elect Barack Obama saying: “The USA is engaged in a war against an extremist group of folks” or “The more important question is, how many hands have I shaked”.
National security statements won’t include remarks like: “The minute I got elected, the storm clouds on the horizon were getting nearly directly overhead” nor would foreign relations be marked by observations like: “Wow, Brazil is big!”
We are already subjected to a lot of boring policy mumbo-jumbo by an articulate team of the president-elect, when it was so much easier to say: “Can’t living with the bill means it won’t become a law?”
I will miss W, he inserted humour in diplomatic jargon, he cut through the tensions in the most serious situations, he made the office of President of America humane.
No other president will say: The best moment of his presidency was when he “caught a 7.5 pound largemouth bass in (his) lake”.
“Not in French, nor in English nor in Mexican”.