Sweden, Switzerland, same diff ”I don’t know why you’re talking about Sweden,” Bush said. ”They’re the neutral one. They don’t have an army.” Lantos paused, a little shocked, and offered a gentlemanly reply: ”Mr. President, you may have thought that I said Switzerland. They’re the ones that are historically neutral, without an army.” Then Lantos mentioned, in a gracious aside, that the Swiss do have a tough national guard to protect the country in the event of invasion. Bush held to his view. ”No, no, it’s Sweden that has no army.”One congressman – the Hungarian-born Tom Lantos, a Democrat from California and the only Holocaust survivor in Congress – mentioned that the Scandinavian countries were viewed more positively. Lantos went on to describe for the president how the Swedish Army might be an ideal candidate to anchor a small peacekeeping force on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Sweden has a well-trained force of about 25,000. The president looked at him appraisingly, several people in the room recall.
See, and from my perspective I knew immediately that Trump had the potential to eclipse the ever-loving shit out of GWB. My blind spot was forgetting that not everyone else was acquainted with Trump going back to Spy Magazine. The thing about GWB is he was a front for a bunch of soulless back-room neocons. The thing about Trump is he was a front for a bunch of soulless back-room foreign oligarchs, and even they couldn't keep him under control.