Fair Weather Friends

In English, we have this term, "fair weather friends" that refers to people who are only your friend when things are going well. You know, if you're on the top of your game, making lots of money, popular, they're friends with you. However, the minute that luck turns the other way, they aren't your friend anymore. They simply don't want to know you when the weather turns gloomy. Now, I haven't had a whole lot of these friends. Most of my friends have been the "through thick and thin" types. So, it's not my own friends that have gotten me thinking about the expression.

In fact, today I was reading the Jordan Times and saw an article on how President Bush is visiting Bahrain. In he article, it talked about how factions (mostly opposition) were protesting Bush's visit. They also quoted one of them as saying that Bush isn't a friend to Arabs. My immediate reaction was that Bush is a friend of the Arabs. Only, he's a fair weather friend. When he needs something he's a friend. Right now, he wants to go after Iran (because Afghanistan and Iraq weren't enough and after all the election is coming up soon). So, he's doing a tour to try and garner support. The funny thing is that I don't think most Arabs support Iran, but after the mess Bush created in Iraq, it seems to me that they will support his desires even less (I certainly do). The article cited the Israeli Defense Minister (I think) telling how the evidence clearly shows, yada yada yada. Well, that definitely doesn't make me MORE likely to support it. While I know that Israel has astonishing knowledge of what's going on inside their borders, after the WMD fiasco, I won't trust Bush or the Israelis say-so that someone is doing something. I find I can't trust that the evidence wasn't manufactured or misinterpreted. And, I started wondering, will the Middle East ever get a "through thick and thin" friend in the White House? Sadly, I'm afraid not...

Happy friendships!