Whatever the political miscues during the Egyptian portion of her Mideast trip, at least Laura Bush got to be on Egyptian Sesame Street. That's a memory to treasure. Maybe not worth scuppering her husband's credibility as a democracy promoter in the region and squandering America's influence over Egypt's collapsing reform hopes, but still pretty darn neat.
I just hope she cleared it with Broadcasting Board of Governors head (and al-Hurra patron) Ken Tomlinson to make sure that there were no veiled liberal, anti-American propaganda messages in the "children's program." For example, did you notice that the big green Arab muppet only has four fingers? Where's the fifth? Probably a middle finger aimed right at America, I'll bet.
Alam Simsim is a great and cute show. One of USAID's better projects in Egypt, and I say that as an employee on a USAID funded project! Now Laura Bush - well, if she only weren't Bush's wife, I probably would not really have anything against her, but as it is. All she managed to do here as far as I can tell is royally screw up the traffic to Maadi.
Posted by: Anna in Cairo | May 25, 2005 at 07:27 AM
Anna
Here's the link to the English-language Asharq website:
http://www.aawsat.com/english/
salamaat
Posted by: Mona Eltahawy | May 25, 2005 at 08:49 AM
I had no idea aardvarks are so funny. I'm laughing out loud and people are staring.
Posted by: lebanon.profile | May 25, 2005 at 10:19 AM
AA: The thing of children's characters having only four fingers is long-standing, going back to Bugs Bunny and friends in the 30s.
It's not strange, just cartoon tradition.
Posted by: Penta | May 26, 2005 at 03:18 PM