Who Needs a Baby to Hold?

A recent study found that people who bully others do less bullying after they have held a baby. On the same CNN show, "Parker-Spitzer", that asked about "American Exceptionalism", (see my previous post), the co-host asked their guests "Who needs a baby to hold?"

The same guest who could not zero in on the source of "American Exceptionalism", again went down swinging.

"Glenn Beck needs a baby to hold, and...oh, Bill O'Reilly." Another guest threw in Nancy Pelosi's name. Okay, all bad actors, I suppose. But, again, they miss the uprights. The question is not "Who is a bully?" Too many people fit that mold; perhaps we all do at some point in our lives, having bullied classmates, younger siblings, even small animals. The question is "Who?" I offer two entities: American needs a baby to hold. Who has been a bigger bully than the nation whose favorite boasts is: "We are taking nothing off the table."

We talk about our kids bullying in school when, on the world stage, we exude the notion that might makes right. (Bullies live by that principle.) America is the bully supreme.

And on whom do we beat? Like all bullies, we beat on the those smaller than ourselves. We bombed Iraq after it invaded our friend, Kuwait. We attached Grenada. We invaded Panama. We bombed Serbia, Libya, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and then bombed Iraq, again.

Funny that we did not bomb Russia after they invaded our friend, Georgia. Neither did we bomb China when they captured one of America's most sophisticated jets. That happened in 2000. We took "bombing" off the table then, and waited patiently while China took its own sweet time before sending our aircraft back to us in pieces.

Speaking of "Taking nothing off the table": Doesn't that sound illegal? Doesn't that suggest that we will do anything; even violate international law to get our way? Isn't that the same mantra the terrorists live by? Nothing is off the table. Isn't that whey we despise them so, because they might do anything?

President Obama has since modified that position, insisting that "torture is off the table." I doubt that it is. We may not torture within our formal framework, but we will outsource such work to places like Egypt, Poland, Bulgaria, and other "black sites" where people can get away with murder. (We torture when we buy torture).

Bullying is in our blood. We think it keeps us safe. Of course, it does not; it only keeps us busy.

Now two of the planet's great bullies have squared off on the world stage. (They need a baby bad). Dare w give each one to hold.