Turkey Links Fathers to Sons

Father and son POTUS (POTI?), H.W. and W., are currently holding hands in Turkish enmity — at least according to the more militant voices raised in response to the Congressional vote to offer an opinion that the killing of hundreds of thousands (maybe a million or more) Armenians 90 years ago was not just bad but wrong.

Bush 41 is accused of dragging Turkey into a war and costing it millions in petrodollars, as well as making things worse between the country and its Turkish minority (the Kurds, who received a quasi-homeland on the Turkish doorstep post First Gulf Struggle). Bush 43 is accused (and this one is hard to argue with) of weakening himself so much that a congresswoman with a large Armenian-American constituency (Speaker Nancy Pelosi) was able to push through a resolution that had hardly moved behind discussions stage for more than 20 years.

Of course, Turkey has not helped people's perception of its reasonableness by sentencing a son for publishing the words of his father, who was murdered after speaking of the Turkish "genocide."

** Deny or embrace it, nobody will let you escape a father's legacy. **