That might not be the best title, as it's what John Wilkes Booth is supposed to have hollered after assassinating Lincoln ("Thus always to tyrants" is the translation from Latin), but it came to mind in this week's dust-up between Hugo Chavez and Spain's King Juan Carlos. Chavez dissed the right-of-center former PM Aznar (who was with the US on Iraq) as a subhuman fascist in league with Dubya; later, current Spanish PM Zapatero, a man of the left and no neocon, came to Aznar's defense.
Mr Chavez repeatedly tried to interrupt, despite his microphone being turned off. The king leaned forward and said: "Why don't you shut up?"
According to reports, the king used a familiar term normally used only for close acquaintances - or children.
My Spanish is a bit rusty, but Spanish has two forms of you, a intimate tu form used from friends, family and loved ones, and a formal usted form used for superiors and strangers; if you're listening to a song at a Mexican restaurant, the love songs won't be using usted, but a head of state addressing a fellow leader probably would.
Using the intimate form would be considered a bit cheeky, like our current president using a diminutive of an head of state's first name (e.g. calling Canadian PM Harper "Steve"). When used in a dressing down, it might seem like you're chewing out a child.
Juan Carlos knows about fascists. He was raised to be one and turned his back on it. He was groomed to be the successor to strongman Francisco Franco. Franco didn't trust Juan Carlos' father, but groomed Juan Carlos to restore the monarchy and keep things away from the leftists that Franco beat in the Civil War of the 1930s.
However, Juan Carlos turned the tables on the fascists (loosely defined, for the Franco bunch was more folks of the right than the authoritarian left that Mussolini represented) and restored full democracy, giving power to a popularly-elected Socialist government and becoming a UK-style ceremonial-only monarch; Franco must have been doing 10000 RPMs in his grave.
He knows fascists and tyrants; Chavez might well look more the part far more than Aznar ever did.
Yes, it's what Booth shouted, but it's also the state motto for Virginia.
Posted by: William Sulik | November 11, 2007 at 10:24 PM