Iran released the 15 British sailors yesterday.Here in Boston, conservative WRKO radio talk show host Todd Feinburg, whose show I enjoy btw, went a bit whacky saying (if I may paraphrase) how the sailors were shown in conversation with Iran's President Ahmadinejihad in wire photos, happy and in enjoyable, smiling chit chat with Ahmadinejihad as they heard about their release.
Feinburg said it looked like a party and it made him sick because they were cow-towing to him when they should be spitting in his face.....and somehow this reflected the US under the "liberals".
He basically called the 15 sailors "kiss-ass cowards" and then invited call-ins because if he was there, he'd act differently......which is very easy to say when you're sitting in a radio studio in Boston.
Todd then admitted he never served in the Armed Forces and then lamented that , so help me, "John Wayne wouldn't have acted like this",Well, Todd, John Wayne never served, so he never had the chance to be scared shitless after being captured. He made movies in Hollywood the whole time. Ron Reagan, whom you also mentioned, due to poor eyesight, served in a noncombat role making movies for the Army in southern California during WWII. "Hellcats of the Navy" just doesn't count. And Alfred E. President, our current jerk, well, everybody knows that story.
My favorite character in fiction is Sir Harry Flashman, created by the great George McDonald Fraser. Flashy winds up being the most decorated soldier in 19th century England, in a series of ten novels, even though he's nothing but, by his own admission, a sniveling coward.
In "Flashman and the Dragon", Flashy's in China and he and two other Brits are taken prisoner by a Chinese warlord who tells them all to lick his feet , swear only allegiance to him and he'd let them live. Of course, the other two will not do it and are taken away and immediately beheaded.
BUT not old Flashy. In one of the greatest lines a great writer ever wrote, Sir Harry thinks to himself "There's a time to grovel and a time not to grovel....and this is the time to grovel". So he bends over, kisses and washes the brute's feet, swears allegiance saying he never liked Queen Victoria anyway, eventually screws the guys wife, escapes and is honored as a hero , winning yet another medal for bravery , while the other two beheaded Brits lay in a grave somewhere.
See, Sir Harry, who'd been to so many foreign wars, battles and intrigues while the priggish Generals and government officials (and if there was radio back then, talk show hosts) back home played Whist, learned quickly, that it's all bullshit and there just ain't no sense getting killed over it.
If it were me and Ahmadinejihad said "Look happy and drink tea with me", I'd ask him if he'd like me to get him more tea and how many lumps of sugar he'd enjoy. And if he drank too much tea, I'd ask him if I could hold Little Mohammed for him while he peed.
I wouldn't be spitting in his face and calling him names. I'd just want to get the fuck out! And, believe me, so would Todd Feinburg.
