...or did someone buy GWB a globe last Christmas?

George W. Bush in Africa. Haven't these people suffered enough?

In case you haven't made it to page 16 of Friday's Washington Post (I'm sure that he did better in The NY Times), your President is headed for Africa. This is a man whose previous encounters with the Dark Continent were limited to listening to his college roomates' Ladysmith Black Mombazo album.
George has never listed a knowledge of geography as one of his strengths. His attitude is, if we are not invading a country, why do we need to know where it is? The President was so information-starved about the globe that he kept asking a visiting Tony Blair if he drove or flew (rim shot).

In case you imagined that Fearless George was jetting into the teeth of danger to extinguish the fires in Kenya and the Sudan, guess again. George W. is headed to Tanzania, Ghana, Liberia, Rwanda (having just seen the movie with Don Cheedle, he wants to stay in "the hotel") and, are you ready, Benin. Before you go scurrying off to an atlas, Benin is a key-hole shaped country wedged between Nigeria and Togo (where?) in Western Africa.

Lest you think that your President is leaving the Kenyans to their fate, shame on you. George has dispatched Condoleezza Rice to sort out the problems between the Kikuyu and the Kalenjin.
Sending the Secretary of State to this hot spot relieved the President of the burden of having to recall both tribal names as well as the impossible task of remembering which was which (like it matters). One would have imagined that the President would send Dick "Dead-Eye" Cheney into a dangerous spot like Nairobi. At least he owns the necessary ordnance.

Considering GW's limited exposure to black culture, (Colin Powell, the only black man George ever met, is from the Bronx), the President will need to be reminded of certain facts:

In Rwanda, remember Tutsi is a tribe, not a Dustin Hoffman movie.

Swahili is not the same as Ebonics.

Burkina Faso is a country, not the actor who played Huggy Bear on Starsky and Hutch.

Ghana is not the first syllable of an STD.





As long as George stays on script, all should be fine. After all, how much harm can he do? About 45% of Africa is Muslim and they already hate us. If George can gain the support of just a few more Africans, he will leave the continent with a higher approval rating than he has here. Not bad for a man who read The Jungle Book only last week.