Welcoming Dr Haass

By Jude Collins (judecollins.net)

Good to see you, Dr Haass. We are a naturally hospitable people but consider your welcome as double the usual. Anyone who can help us deal with flags, parades and the past gets the mother and father of all cead mile failtes. There may be the occasional nay-sayer who’ll mutter about the arrival of someone from a country that’s led invasion of two Middle East countries and has urged bombing of a third, coming here and telling us how to get along peacefully. But that’s just pickiness - don’t mind them, Richard. (You don’t mind if I call you Richard? Lovely). And then we have a few others who insist that you’re a bit of a hawk in your writings and such. But as Tony Soprano used to say, whatchagonnado, eh? The thing is for us all to ignore the negativity, put our collective shoulder to the wheel and who knows what progress you’ll get out of us.

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