Why Bush hides his Irish roots
John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan never missed a chance to brag about their Irish heritage, said Angelique Chrisafis in the London Guardian. A little wearin' o' the green appeals to all those Irish-American voters.
George W. Bush, though, hasn't said a word about his Celtic ancestors. Perhaps that's because it turns out that he's descended from "the power-hungry warlord who led the Norman invasion of Ireland" in the 12th century and caused 800 years of Irish misery.
The Bush ancestor, Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke, was known as "Strongbow," because of his prowess with the arrow. Bloodthirsty and reviled, when Strongbow died of a festering ulcer, the Irish said it was the revenge of "Irish saints whose shrines he had violated." Yet he's not even the worst of the Bush line.
George W. is also related to Dermot MacMurrough, Ireland's biggest traitor. MacMurrough was the chieftan who invited the Normans to invade in the first place.
The Irish are aghast at the news of Bush's evil ancestry. But then, they already disliked him. When he visited last year, he was dubbed "the most hated American ever to set foot on Irish soil."
Printed in The Week, 2/11/2005.
Written by Angelique Chrisafis for The Guardian (UK).
posted by Schroeder @ 6:00 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Uh, excuse me. Let me see if I got this right...you actually believe that President Bush doesn't talk about being Irish because of something that happened 800 years ago? He is American. That is the way many of us see ourselves. Yes, we ask Mom, "What am I?" Out of curiousity mostly. Are you aware that you don't have to go to jail for something a relative has done? They wrote that into the Constitution, because that's the way it was in England. Well, I hope you have a nice Valentine's Day.
Rosemary,
Nice to hear from you.
I can appreciate the sense you have that President Bush should not concern himself with something that happened over 800 years ago. Nevertheless, most Americans (Ronald Reagan was cited in the article) who can identify their ancestors have more than just a casual interest in their family heritage.
Obviously, we are citizens of the United States and patriots first, but we can be equally proud of our heritage derived from other cultural and national identities.
By the way, Rosemary, it wasn't "I" saying what I believed. I was repeating what the Guardian columnist said people in the U.K. believe about Bush. His family's history only serves as an *amusing* confirmation of dubya as the most despised U.S. President in history.
Given a little more time, I think an even larger majority of Americans will agree with the Irish.
And a Happy Valentine's Day to you as well.
I think Bush qualifies as the most hated American to set foot on American soil--though he might share that honor with Clinton. (Clinton's gone but Lucienne's still here.) For the record, I'm descended from an arm-long list of European tyrants as well as some Irish peasants.
this makes perfect sense especially with bush requesting the head of bin ladan sent to him in a box of dry ice. he is closer to the tyrants than anything close to being christian.
Yeah, Osama's head in a box delivered to the White House. Now I can imagine that lots of Americans would love to know that Osama died a brutal death, but his head in a box to the White House?
This is not an order made by a civilized mind (Bush), but it does bring to mind the relatively contemporary story of Che Guevara's hands being cut off as evidence of his death.
The shock of such an order, and the bizarre lengths that would have to be undertaken to physically accomplish the task (and therefore, how absolutely insane such an order is) was documented in horrifying detail on NPR:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4626666
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