Rolf paused mid-sentence and lifted his hands above his head, moving his fingers up and down. His grin was lopsided and he rolled his eyes.
"A marionette," I said.
"Yes, yes, that's the word," he said. "Bush is marionette. He's a fucking idiot. Cheers."
He lifted his beer up and we clinked our mugs together. I was sitting next to Rolf, a German, in the Hofbrauhaus in downtown Munich during Oktoberfest. After I told him I was from the United States, the first words out of his mouth were, "Do you like Bush?" I told him I really didn't know Bush well, that he is a fairly private executive, but he has not done anything I have seriously objected to. I admire his guts, I said, and his thoroughness. Maybe he always doesn't have the right idea, but at least he has balls.
Rolf said America's political power lies in the backstage hands of Condolleeza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld. A little surprised by his blunt insight, I agreed with him. The Bush administration is definitely collaborative, though many Americans might call it oligarchic. But Bush, even though he relies on the support and experience of his cabinet, is presidential material: Eloquent when he needs to be and always decisive.
Rolf didn't buy it. "A fucking idiot," he repeated, slugging the dregs of his liter of beer, but I couldn't coax any reason out of him.
A week or two later, I was waiting at a tram stop with a fellow classmate, Beth, from England. We broached the topic of politics, and I asked her what her impressions of American politics are.
"It's bizarre," she said almost immediately. "You just got Schwarzenegger elected to California, and the whole election with Bush a couple years back was strange."
Yes, the 2000 election was a debacle, but I thought Schwarzenegger's win is a shining example of democracy. Californians didn't like their leader, so they got a new one. It WAS bizarre, though, to see his face on posters for "T3," giving the death look at Czech escalator riders from behind red glasses.
Sentiment toward the United States and American politics is difficult to gauge here, but I am prompted to investigate the matter more after discovering a wall of anti-American graffiti in the bathroom of a bagel shop. Quoting graffiti, the universal journalism for people who carry Sharpies with them, is not valid reporting. However, it is amusing and, in its own way, a cross-sectional editorial from the global community, albeit with its pants down.
A sampling of the more tame headlines:
"American Patriotism is the New Fascism."
"Commemorate 9/11: do it again!"
"The only way to freedom is the death of American capitalism."
"Fuckin' Yanks come over here and act like they own the place, embarrassing themselves and their country."
"Farrah Fawcett is a prophet."
Don't ask what compelled me to write this stuff down, or to even write about it, but the last one is my favorite and, I think, the only substantive one.
