Tuesday, September 13, 2005

An Empty New York Schedule

Check out President Lahoud's schedule in New York:

Wednesday, 14th September:

7:15AM - Breakfast with heads of delegations in the presence of Kofi Annan
2:30PM - Photo with heads of delegations
3:30 - Meets with Iranian President, Ahmadi Najjad
4:00 - Meets with Bosnian President
4:30 - Meets with Deputy PM of Luxembourg
7:00 - Attend reception held by President of Gabon
8:30 - Attend reception held by Monaco's Ambassador

Thursday, 15th September:

10:15AM - Participate in heads of delegation of Francophone countries meeting
1:15PM - Attend reception held by South Africa's President

Friday, 16th September:

10:30AM - Meet with Estonia's President

Monday, 19th September:

4:00PM - Lahoud's speech before the General Assembly

Tuesday, 20th September:

6:30PM - Attend reception held by Turkish Deputy PM

What a waste of government funds on such an empty agenda! What is the President doing except attend receptions (which translates to: drinking, a lot of smiling, eating finger-foods, and empty talk). And worse, receptions hosted by so-so countries.

The President's trip comes at a time when PM Seniora will be attending an important donor meeting in New York on the 19th and 20th of September. Well...looks like Lahoud will be so busy during those two days...

"Nobody knows how many rebellions, besides political rebellions, ferment in the masses of life which people earth."

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

General Lahoud is just an irrelevant rag doll: who cares about him anyway?

I’m afraid the fact that his eminent highness Saudi Marquis de Sa’adouldînne and/or Baroness Seniorita will have breakfast at Tiffany’s with Dick Cheney’s grandmother and Jack Chirac’s sister is equally irrelevant.

The real issue is what we do NOW to fight and defeat the mounting WAHHABI HYDRA that is threatening to engulf Lebanon’s fledging institutions...starting with the (still nominally Christian for now) Presidency.

Lazarus said...

You know, I'm not defending lahoud or anything, but it suprises me how much of the media has jumped on the bandwagon of criticizing his spending ... when much more is being wasted in other areas ...

cfw said...

lazarus-- i agree. when i saw that first naharnet article on it, my immediate response was, "wow, that's a bit petty." i mean, of course i still read it, and was duly appalled by lahoud's delegation size and spending for such an empty schedule. does anyone know what the average expense of these trips is? i actually get the feeling the lebanese price tag is somewhere in the middle of the range. it's mainly objectionable, in my opinion, because no one really wants lahoud there anyways.

it's funny to think how, were lahoud in better favor (or if someone else had replaced him), the media probably would've taken an opposite spin on the whole hotel bill business-- the fact that they switched to a cheaper place would be trumpeted as evidence of the president's humility and leadership and so forth.

Anonymous said...

Maroun, the wahabbi hydra isn't the problem right now. You're a shame to the true Maronites who allied with Hariri.

Raja said...

amorc, I consider that to be inflamatory language! What do you mean by "true maronites"??? I cannot bring myself to understand that concept! Does it mean:

- the most religious maronites?
- the maronites with "purest" blood?

What exactly do you mean when you say that only the "true" maronites supported Hariri? Of course, since you know that such an assertion means nothing, you're probably trying to do nothing but spark a sectarian debate in this forum. Why don't you and Maroun go and start your own blog and debate each other on what exactly a "true maronite" means!

Raja said...

You two can also debate what exactly maroun means when he mentions, as he does so often, "the Wahabi Hydra."

Anonymous said...

I was joking man!

True maronite meant representative maronite... And there's nothing sectarian in saying that they should work with the Sunni leadership.