A Father-to-Son Talk

Leave it to Dad to rain on your parade:

The first President Bush has told his son that hopes of peace in the Middle East would be ruined if a war with Iraq were not backed by international unity.

Drawing on his own experiences before and after the 1991 Gulf War, Mr Bush Sr said that the brief flowering of hope for Arab-Israeli relations a decade ago would never have happened if America had ignored the will of the United Nations.

He also urged the President to resist his tendency to bear grudges, advising his son to bridge the rift between the United States, France and Germany.

"You've got to reach out to the other person. You've got to convince them that long-term friendship should trump short-term adversity," he said.

Junior's unequivocal case for war, it seems, is about as convincing to his dad as my eloquently-presented case to mine that school wasn't necessary after eighth grade

[Bush, Sr.] said that the key question of how many weapons of mass destruction Iraq held "could be debated". The case against Saddam was "less clear" than in 1991, when Mr Bush Sr led an international coalition to expel invading Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Objectives were "a little fuzzier today", he added.

If Bush, Sr. is anything like my dad, the next thing on his fatherly to-do list is the all-important lesson: money doesn't grow on trees.

UPDATE: Kevin Drum makes a good point about this story; namely, that it's not much of a story. Ho hum. This is what you get for blogging while eating dinner.