Kabuki Theater, Texas Style

With a hat tip to Jesse Walker over at Reason's Hit & Run, the New York Times reports that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told President Bush during a U.S. visit that he had “deep-hearted sympathies that the people who had to serve as comfort women were placed in extreme hardships” during World War II and apologized "for the fact that they were placed in that sort of circumstance.”

What Bush replied: "I accept the prime minister's apology."

What Bush should have said:

Thank you, Prime Minister Ginzu – by the way, Laura loves your knives. Let me just say in response to your apology that ‘All Your Sex Slave Are Belong to Us.’ No, no, that's just a little hip internet humor I learned from the twins one night when we were doing tequila shooters in the Lincoln Bedroom. Seriously, though, on behalf of my fellow sex slaves everywhere, I accept your apology and especially your promise that all sexual slavery in Japan will be abstinence based in the future. I also appreciate your not releasing a list of the U.S. clients of your World War II sex slaves like that blabbermouth Deborah Jeane Palfrey, or Mistress Debbie, as Dick Cheney likes to call her. But slavery and sex are only two of the many things we have in common. Let me conclude by saying again what I said back in 2002. For a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. I thank you.