bushwhacked
According to my trusty WordWeb computer tool (it's like the online Thesaurus, but in my opinion better) the adjective "Bush" means the following:
Adjective: Bush bûsh
1. Not of the highest quality or sophistication
Now, I thought this was rather amusing and somewhat apt. However, it is rather embarrassing to share your moniker with a rather accurate description of your personality.
As I am sure most of you know, President George "Dubya" Bush was in town last week as part of his Whistle Stop tour of the Middle East. On his third and final day in Israel, the President confidently declared that there would be a peace agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinians before he leaves office at the end of the year.
Well, PHEW for that! I, for one, can sleep a whole lot easier now that Mr Bush has given me his personal guarantee that there will finally be peace in this eretz nehederet (wonderful land) of ours!
I think the only thing Israelis will remember about the President's visit last week was how bloody inconvenienced they were! For the majority of the three day visit, most of Jerusalem's major roads were closed to traffic (including the Jerusalem-Tel Aviv highway). Public transport did not operate, and most people either had to stay home from work (because they could not physically get there) or for people like me who live reasonably close to their place of work, were forced to go everywhere by foot. This, in itself is not a bad thing, except for the fact that we're in the middle of winter and it is really COLD outside Mr President!
The President and his entourage booked out the entire King David Hotel. Other guests who were booked to stay there at the same time were rather unceremoniously dumped and forced to find alternative accommodation. Bush's cast of thousands (literally) also booked out the nearby Dan Panorama Hotel, bringing a total of 800 rooms that were booked by his accompanying staff.
Security in Jerusalem was, as you can imagine, insane. The streets, emptied of traffic, were instead, filled with police, military, U.S security and secret servicemen and women. The King David Hotel was turned into Fort Knox, with the entire front of the hotel covered up by white plastic sheeting. Even the side of the hotel was covered by giant marquees so as to conceal all comings and goings from the hotel. Snipers adorned the rooftop of the hotel and ropes were secured from the roof to the ground all around the perimeter of the hotel should the need for his security staff to get to him in nanoseconds arise.
Hotel staff were also in lock-down and not permitted to leave the hotel for the duration of the President's visit.
Now, unfortunately for me and Doron, we live about 100 metres from the King David Hotel and so we were subjected to the full brunt of the security measures. Every entrance and exit to our street was cut off to traffic (including the pedestrian variety!) unless your Israeli ID showed your address to be local.
Mr Bush headed off about lunchtime on Friday, thankfully giving us Jerusalemites a little bit of time to run around and do our usual pre-Shabbat preparations. I noticed, with some amusement, that the brand new American flags that had been hoisted above the city streets were being pulled down almost as soon as the last car in the President's motorcade drove off.
Bon Voyage George. I hope you at least got to eat a decent falafel while you were here.