Pinky and Me

Tim Noah offers up the ultimate Benazir Bhutto college remembrances parody column.

For my part, I met Prince Hamzah bin al-Hussein of Jordan when we were at Harvard and he was the Crown Prince. He didn't strike me as a particularly appealing person on any level. Nevertheless, all this Bhutto business did leave me looking forward to the day when I could reminisce about the King. It turns out, though, that he was removed from the position in 2004. Tragic stuff. I don't think anyone else I know from school is likely to become a dictator anywhere.

Comments

You never know.

Harvard produces at lease one potential dictator per class. Yale, on the other hand, has a tendency to produce the likes of Clarence Thomas.

Posted by gregor | January 2, 2008 11:37 AM

From "Legally Blonde: The Musical", as the new Harvard Law students introduce themselves:

SUNDY
(spoken) Sundy Pagrowell Pommadon, but you may call me "your majesty."

(sung) In my country
My word was law
But then I flee
Because of stupid "coup d'etat"

But here I learn
I make new friends
And soon return
In bullet-proof Mercedes Benz

Posted by DonBoy | January 2, 2008 11:44 AM

I'd let Natalie Portman be my dictator anytime.

Posted by Reality Man | January 2, 2008 11:53 AM

Where's that American can-do spirit?

If your college acquaintances are coming up short in the prospects-for-becoming-dictators department, your response shouldn't be to sit back and blame others. Go out and become a dictator yourself!!

Hell, you don't even have to move to some foreign country anymore to realize that particular dream. The good old US of A has gotten more banana Republican these days than most third world nations.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | January 2, 2008 12:33 PM

The Noah piece is pure genius.

Thanks for linking to it.

Posted by Exile on Ericsson St. | January 2, 2008 2:22 PM

I can't believe you didn't try to flog for your Dalton days here. Any possible future dictators among that aristocratic bunch?

Spoiled elitist jackass.

Posted by Reader | January 2, 2008 2:37 PM

I knew Raffi Hovannisian (the former foreign minister of Armenia) at UC Berkeley. Nice guy, played tight end on our intramural football team.

Posted by Mike | January 2, 2008 7:01 PM

I enjoyed Noah's piece, thanks for the link.

But after that, I went to the comments, and found a link to William Dalrymple's piece for the Dec. 30 Observer, "Pakistan's flawed and feudal princess," which offered a lot to chew on. So then I went to the plethora of comments there, and found a great fascinating mixture, including some obvious Pakistanis and/or Pakistani-Brits with intriguing comments about such things as tribal rivalries between Muhajirs and Punjabis and Sindhis, and between country mice and city mice, and the power of landowners in the sticks....

One that hit me real hard as a thought-provoker was this one:

confucian December 30, 2007 11:04 AM Dalrymple's judgment of Benazir Bhutto tells us as much about the writer as about the subject. Benazir's flaw is that she is pro-western and westernized. Elsewhere Dalrymple praises Bashar el Assad as the only guarantee of freedom of religion in the Middle East. It is a mystery to a confucian why this is so. Western Liberals have an aberation for anything pro-west. Its like a native does not have the right to hold certain values or aspire to equal status. The little dark people are all right if they are terrorists or dictators and it is normal for them to hate the west. What is unforgivable is if they are pro western. A self flagelating western liberal with post colonial guilt cannot identify with that, how can they be with the west if the west is so bad? they must hate us and hate everybody who is with us. It is almost alright to kill people like that and we should not mourn them. Its like Groucho Marx who would not belong to a club that would have him as a member. Confucian is very much confused, should he hate the west to gain its respect? or should confucian just dismiss Dalrymple as another person with double standards who has a problem with himself rather than with Bhutto or Assad.

Is there a shrink in the house?

So, thanks even more for the link! Some very good surfing came from it.

Posted by artapppraiser | January 2, 2008 11:47 PM

"I'd let Natalie Portman be my dictator anytime."

Or Jodie Foster, who might be more likely to actually be one.

Artappraiser: "Confucian" sounds like an idiot to me.

Nobody cares about Bhutto's "westernization" except to the degree it produces a bunch of bullshit in the press about who she was, disregarding her actual actions and the results they produced when she ran the country.

"A self flagelating western liberal with post colonial guilt"

Yeah, right, like everybody is like that. It's on a par with "self-hating Jew" if you criticize Israel.

Which makes me suspect "Confucian" is nothing of the sort, but some asshole neocon Zionist thug.

If you thought that horseshit hit you real hard, you're gonna love this post.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | January 3, 2008 12:59 AM