The US election has as they say over there "gotten" nasty.
While it may have been a joke to say that they only difference between a pitbill and a Hockey mom was the lipstick, I really don't understand why American pitbulls wear lipstick. The bare faced lies that Sarah Palin has been prepared to sell to the American public: that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists" etc. either mark her out as a truly exceptionally stupid woman or they demonstrate a contempt for the American people that is, quite literally, an insult to their intelligence.
It is now hardly a surprise that the McCain campaign is going down with all hands.
In fact, and more accurately, it is the Republican party that is holed below the waterline.
Sen. McCain has a record of distinguished service. However even he -and still less the witless Gov. Palin- can not overcome the legacy of the Bush administration and its record of reckless arrogance. The strutting mock-Texan George "W" Bush tried to to force the world into his own limited understanding and he failed. He failed to understand that even when facing the depravity of Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, it is still necessary to explain and to form a coalition.
Leadership involves persuading and cajoling people into doing things they may not wish to do and following ones own line. America had such leadership- earned through the hard lessons of the Cold war. Under Bush, it has come close to losing it.
Barack Obama is a natural coalition builder- in his world, whoever is not actually against him, is for him. Bush, by contrast, has alienated even those who are the natural supporters of the United States.
As Palin shows- oh so clearly- that she has learned nothing form the failures of the worst President in American history, Barack Obama now looks not only like the victor by some margin, but also that his Presidency could contain the elements of the transformational leadership that the country needs in order to overcome the disaster of the last eight years.
As a long time friend of the United States, I certainly hope so, and that the freak show of Sarah Palin and her demented followers is relegated to the footnote in a tome of a very obscure political history of the Great Republic.
While it may have been a joke to say that they only difference between a pitbill and a Hockey mom was the lipstick, I really don't understand why American pitbulls wear lipstick. The bare faced lies that Sarah Palin has been prepared to sell to the American public: that Barack Obama "pals around with terrorists" etc. either mark her out as a truly exceptionally stupid woman or they demonstrate a contempt for the American people that is, quite literally, an insult to their intelligence.
It is now hardly a surprise that the McCain campaign is going down with all hands.
In fact, and more accurately, it is the Republican party that is holed below the waterline.
Sen. McCain has a record of distinguished service. However even he -and still less the witless Gov. Palin- can not overcome the legacy of the Bush administration and its record of reckless arrogance. The strutting mock-Texan George "W" Bush tried to to force the world into his own limited understanding and he failed. He failed to understand that even when facing the depravity of Osama Bin Laden or Saddam Hussein, it is still necessary to explain and to form a coalition.
Leadership involves persuading and cajoling people into doing things they may not wish to do and following ones own line. America had such leadership- earned through the hard lessons of the Cold war. Under Bush, it has come close to losing it.
Barack Obama is a natural coalition builder- in his world, whoever is not actually against him, is for him. Bush, by contrast, has alienated even those who are the natural supporters of the United States.
As Palin shows- oh so clearly- that she has learned nothing form the failures of the worst President in American history, Barack Obama now looks not only like the victor by some margin, but also that his Presidency could contain the elements of the transformational leadership that the country needs in order to overcome the disaster of the last eight years.
As a long time friend of the United States, I certainly hope so, and that the freak show of Sarah Palin and her demented followers is relegated to the footnote in a tome of a very obscure political history of the Great Republic.
Comments
A question. Why is the spread on Italian Bonds different from the German ones now they're all together in a Currency union? In theory they should now all be equal or does the market feel if it ever came to it the Bundesbank would "stand by" Italy in the way they did for us in 1992.
Lepidus
Whatever the result your claim to be a friend of the US clearly does not extend to a great many of its citizens and can you really listen to Obamaha and not smell fraud ?
I was only recently reading your friend Norman Baker plying the usual Labour lite line of anti Americanism by the way . Once again Cicero you are out of touch with your own Party which generally dislikes America ,Israel and adores Europe largely as a way of confronting America
Are you not concerned about the protectionism espoused by the one and the hints that America is about to abdicate its global reponsibilities?
Personally the long line of vaccuous celebs lined up behind Obamah is more than enough to put me off ...and there`s his gaseous grandiloquent pomposity...yuk.
So all those Gordon Brown-hating blogs that I see - they are all anti-British, are they?