hi-i-igh hopes
We went and saw Clinton last night. Political rallies have few surprises—the message is never a mystery, and the rhetoric is always pitched at a pretty basic level—but it was worth it to hear him orate. We were maybe forty feet back, close enough to get the full effect of his very yellow shirt. I do wish we could have pulled an FDR and kept him around a while longer.
Also, there's always the Arizona spectacle of seeing white guys strain really hard to authentically pronounce Spanish: guacamole -> wahcahmolay and so forth.
Last week, Amman was considered a drowsy capital removed from the region's violent eddies. This week, Americans here are assessing how to lower their profiles. The villa housing the Fulbright Commission, for example, has a number of English and Arabic signs out front marking it as a place where Americans gather. The biggest one, reading The Jordanian-American Commission for Educational Exchange, its formal title, will probably come down, McNamara said.
In addition, he will reluctantly accept guards again. Things did not go well the last time they were posted in front of the building, when the United States bombed Iraq in December 1998. The guards spilled diesel fuel on the porch to light fires to keep themselves warm. There was no toilet, so they used the garden. The neighbors accused one of seducing their maid.
