Political

Boy oh boy, did Vlad the Impaler score big today. 

President Barack Obama on Thursday overhauled plans for a missile defence shield in eastern Europe, promising instead stronger, swifter defence systems to protect U.S. allies against any threat from Iran.

In a move that may ease tensions with Moscow but spur regional fears of resurgent Kremlin influence, Obama said he had approved recommendations from U.S. military leaders to shift focus to defending against Iran's short and medium-term missile capabilities."This new approach will provide capabilities sooner, build on proven systems and offer greater defences against the threat of missile attack," Obama said in a brief statement on scrapping plans for ground-based interceptors in Poland and a related radar site in the Czech Republic

Moscow said it would welcome the decision to drop the program, which had complicated U.S. efforts to enlist Russian support over Afghanistan, Iran and nuclear arms control.{...}

The new plan is to send Aegis destroyers to defend Europe against any rogue nuclear threats. Yeah, that'll work.  Like Russia wouldn't take issue with them cruising the Baltic. 

{insert slap to forehead here}

Failing to earn big points in the bonus round, the nimrods in the Obama adminstration apparently are unable to bookmark Wikipedia, because on this day seventy years ago, Stalin invaded Poland from the east, creating a second front for the beleaguered Polish troops who were doing their damndest to hold off the Nazis. 

Now, seventy years later, we're well out of the Cold War, but we have a ruler in Russia who seemingly longs for it, and enjoys rattling his saber and his natural gas supplies to get what he wants, signalling a return to Russian hegemony in what he considers Russia's historical sphere of influence.  President Bush puts forward a missile defense program, to, ostensibly,protect NATO members in eastern Europe from a rogue attack from Iran. The added benefit of the program is that no matter what its intended design, Russia doesn't like it.  These countries are its former satellites; part of Russia's former sphere of influence, and if Russia can't have them back in the fold, as it were, Vlad certainly, at the very least, does not want western influence in his backyard.  Then Vlad goes and invades Georgia. It's no coinicidence that Poland, which had been dragging its feet on the program, signed on a few days later.

Now, a little over a year later, our rube of a president, ostensibly to gain access to Russian train tracks for the shipping of supplies into Afghanistan, to avoid Taliban-infested routes in Pakistan, dumps this program entirely.

Just how far does a Ginsu go when shoving it into the back of a Czech or a Pole? Can you get that puppy all the way through their bodies, or is it just a flesh wound which will heal easily? Either way, don't expect either country to be on board with anything the US does for quite some time---as in until a new administration is elected.

What doesn't make sense is that this is, purportedly, for Russian rail access into Afghanistan.  THIS is the purported end game? It doesn't make much sense because the give and take is not proportional.  And as much as I would like to think Obama really is this stupid, he's got decent foreign policy analysts on his team who would prevent him from making such a deal. No, the deal only makes sense if the US is getting something else in return---like, say, Russia's cooperation at the UN Security Council when it comes to Iranian sanctions? Bigger, badder sanctions they've been blocking in the Security Council for some time because they're making too much loot selling Iran nuclear "power" components.

Next week, Obama planning to be the first US president to actually chair a meeting of the Security Council---"devoted to nuclear proliferation and disarmament."  Did he give up missile defense, in effect giving in to Russia (and Teheran, by the way), so he could make a bigger, bolder splash at the UN next week? Did Obama throw Poland and the Czech Republic under the bus to bolster his own international statesman whimsies?  Would he really go that far? 

Yep. I believe he would.  The guy's ego knows no bounds. 

If this is the case---that this move is, essentially, laying the ground work for Obama's big UN day next week---one wonders what other concessions will be announced in coming days.  There will have to be other concessions, because Russia isn't the only country who's been dragging their feet on Iranian sanctions: the Chinese have been blocking sanctions, as well. What is Obama going to give up to the Chinese to get them to play ball?  A lessening of pressure to get the PRC to control its neighbor, North Korea?  The removal of hasty and recent tarriffs on Chinese tires?  A withdrawal of the Navy from the Taiwanese Straits? Do tell! 

Just how much of "this" is Obama going to give up for "that"?  I suppose it all depends just how much Obama wants to become the international statesman of our time. Which, I gather, is rather a lot.  

If David Cameron has a pair, he will move for a vote of no-confidence as soon as is humanly possible. 

The Sunday Times has in its possession leaked documents, which show a completely different truth about the "compassionate" release of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber. 

It turns out, it was just like anyone with half a brain thought: blood for oil.

During the past year a small ship bristling with computers and seismic equipment has been crisscrossing the Gulf of Sidra, in the Mediterranean off the Libyan coast. Its mission: to help to find BP’s next offshore oilfields.

The company’s search for oil off Libya and in a 20,000-mile area in the west of the country potentially offers as much as £15 billion in new revenue. But less than two years ago it was feared that the deal could founder; and the reason was wrangling over Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the jailed Lockerbie bomber.

BP was finally given the go-ahead six weeks after a volte-face by the British government to include Megrahi in a prisoner transfer agreement with Libya under which prisoners could serve out sentences in their home countries. Jack Straw, the justice secretary, revealed this decision in a letter to his Scottish counterpart. He cited “wider negotiations” and the “overwhelming interests of the United Kingdom”.

Sources in the UK and Tripoli said last week that those wider interests included BP’s hoped-for share of Libya’s untapped oil and gas reserves. The decision to include Megrahi in the prisoner transfer arrangement was seen by Libyan officials as paving the way for his release — and BP’s much-coveted deal was finally ratified.

{...}The detailed correspondence seen by The Sunday Times confirms that the Lockerbie bomber’s fate was regarded by the UK government as pivotal to relations with Libya. It also shows how anxious the government was to curry favour with Colonel Muammar Gadaffi by being seen to open the way for Megrahi’s release.

The government now faces new questions over its exact role in trade talks and whether or not it favoured Megrahi. William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, is calling for full disclosure of whether commercial contracts for oil were discussed as part of the negotiations for the Libya-UK prisoner transfer treaty.{...}

The gist of the deal is thus: in 2007, then-PM Tony Blair hashed out a prisoner transfer release agreement with Ghaddafi.  Al-Megrahi was specifically not mentioned in the agreement.  Soon after British Petroleum's deal with Libya was ratified by Libya six weeks later.  Tony then leaves office, Gordon Brown gets his shot at the brass ring, and suddenly, the new justice minister, Jack Straw, is advocating to Kenny MacAskill, the Scottish justice minister, that, yes, it would be very good indeed for British national interests if Al-Megrahi were to be released.  Which was a switch from what Lord Falconer, Blair's justice minister, wrote to MacAskill a few months previous.  

As the man said, go read the whole thing.

It would seem as if it was very convenient for the UK Labour government for Al-Megrahi to have come down with so-called terminal prostate cancer, as it gave Brown's government an easy way to please Ghaddafi, without ruffling too many American feathers.  And it might have turned out that way had Ghaddafi put a lid on any celebration at the Tripoli airport when Al-Megrahi returned.  

It shouldn't surprise anyone that this is the truth of the situation.  Britain invented petro-politics---does Iran, 1953 ring a bell?--- and that they're still know how to play the game shouldn't shock anyone.   

The only problem with this scenario is that here you have a deeply unpopular government, who is doing everything they possibly can to raise their rankings in the polls before the next scheduled election cycle---and who is not having much luck with it.  This could very well be the final nail in Brown's coffin. 

I don't know. 

But, like I said at the beginning of this screed, if David Cameron has any resemblence of a pair, he should go on the offensive about this as soon as possible. And he shouldn't let up about it.  This is the opportunity he's been waiting for.

The last of Joe Kennedy's sons died last night.

Good riddance.

I'm not going to eulogize Teddy Kennedy.  I don't think he deserves it.

I am, however, going to say, 'thank God the murdering bastard is finally dead.'  It may not be very Christian of me to say it, but I'm glad he suffered in the last months of his life.  It seems only fair. He deserved it for crashing his car, leaving the scene of the accident, and leaving poor Mary Jo Kopechne to drown because he was either too addled or too afraid of the consequences of doing the right thing to actually do the right thing, which would have been to simply call for help.  All it would have taken to save her was for him to go to the police.  He didn't do so.  He went back to his hotel room and called his political aides instead. Fishermen found the car, and Mary Jo's body, the next morning.  Acccording to the Beeb, evidence from the inquest suggested that she survived for hours due to a air pocket.   If only Teddy would have called the police, had called for any kind of help, she might have survived.  But, in his mind, his political future had more value than that of a secretary's life.    

He may never have intended to harm Mary Jo, he may never have intended to cause her death, but the end result was the same.  He never endured so much as a day's worth of jail for causing her death because he was an all-holy Kennedy. 

May the bastard rot in hell for all eternity.  

Hey Scotland, you suck.

Scotland freed the terminally ill Lockerbie bomber on compassionate grounds Thursday, letting the Libyan go home to die despite American pleas to show no mercy for the man responsible for the 1988 attack that killed 270 people.

The White House declared it "deeply" regretted the Scottish decision as Abdel Baset al-Megrahi left prison and flew to Libya on an Airbus dispatched to Glasgow Airport.

{...}Al-Megrahi, who had served only eight years of his life sentence, was recently given only months to live after being diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill said although al-Megrahi had not shown compassion to his victims — many of whom were American college students flying home to New York for Christmas — MacAskill was motivated by Scottish values to show mercy.

"Some hurts can never heal, some scars can never fade," MacAskill said. "Those who have been bereaved cannot be expected to forget, let alone forgive ... However, Mr. al-Megrahi now faces a sentence imposed by a higher power."

Al-Megrahi, now 57, was convicted in 2001 of taking part in the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988. He was sentenced to life in prison. The airliner exploded over Scotland and all 259 people aboard and 11 on the ground died when it crashed into the town of Lockerbie.

The former Libyan intelligence officer was sentenced to serve a minimum of 27 years in a Scottish prison for Britain's deadliest terrorist attack. But a 2007 review of his case found grounds for an appeal of his conviction, and many in Britain believe he is innocent.{...}

Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It was all about showing Scotland's true commitment to "compassion." Compassion was shown to a man who had been found guilty by a court of law of murdering 270 people.  Or could this decision be more about sticking it to the US ---just because they can?

{...}Alex Salmond, the Scottish Nationalist leader, spies a great opportunity. To be able to defy the demands of the world’s only superpower — what better exhibition could there be of Scotland’s independent standing as a nation? The letter that Mr Salmond has received on this topic, from some high-ranking American senators, including Ted Kennedy and John Kerry, serves his purpose perfectly. So do the strongly disapproving statements from the former presidential candidate John McCain and Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, who said that releasing al-Megrahi would be “absolutely wrong”. In everything he says and does Mr Salmond is relishing the fact that this is a decision for Scotland.{...}

While it would seem as if the Scottish Nationalists are relishing the opportunity to prove their independence by thumbing their noses at the US, the US itself, under the leadership of the Obama administration, hasn't done too much to honor those who died on Pan Am Flight 103 in 1988. 

{...}The uncharacteristically undiplomatic language deployed by Mrs Clinton also smacked of saying the right thing at full volume in the knowledge that the decision had already been taken. The Secretary of State could not conceivably have said anything else. Of the 270 people killed on PanAm Flight 103 twenty years ago, 189 were American. There is no questioning the guilt of al-Megrahi in America. But surely a serious attempt at diplomatic persuasion would have gone through private channels? If any such process were in train, these proclamations would surely scupper it. The Americans are saying the right thing but is this the best way of actually getting it?{...}

NO BLOOD FOR OIL! 

Ghaddafi played this one well.  He's gotten exactly what he wanted, and he's used the Lockerbie bombing as his bargaining chip. Sure, he had to give up a two billion dollars to the families, but that's about all he's given up, and the release of those monies was wholly dependent upon things only the US government could do/lobby for, like the end of UN sanctions. In that respect, he was very much directing US foreign policy to suit his wants.  Sure, he had to hand over Al-Megrahi for trial and sentencing, but the man only spent eight years in prison.  Yes, he has terminal prostate cancer, but he gets to go home and spend his final days and weeks with his loved ones, rather than rotting in a prison infirmary, where he belonged. Of course, Ghaddafi also had to end his dubious and secret nuclear program, but that was an incredibly small price to pay to let the western oil companies come in and make him even richer than he already is.  Nevermind that he's gotten away with retaliating for the bombing of one of his houses by the US, which was the supposed motivation for the Lockerbie bombing.   He's come out of this whole deal smelling like a rose.

I was a senior in high school when Pan Am Flight 103 was bombed and crash landed in Lockerbie, Scotland, killing eleven people who lived in that small town.  Religion classes were part of the program at my high school, and we prayed, and offered up intentions, at the beginning of every such class.  A few days after the bombing, a classmate asked for prayers for a girl who had graduated from our high school a few years earlier and who had gone to the east coast for college was on a study-abroad trip, and had been scheduled to fly home on flight 103.  Instead of using her ticket, she had arranged for her place on the flight to be taken by a friend so the friend could get home in time for her family's Christmas celebrations, which were taking place earlier than the holiday because of some scheduling conflict. Her friend, of course, died in the bombing, and the poor girl was wracked with survivor's guilt. Because of her act of kindness, a friend had died.  Good intentions, sometimes, truly do pave the road to hell. I didn't know this girl, and I can't for the life of me remember her name, but the story stuck with me, and every time I've heard about the Lockerbie bombing over the years, I've wondered about her, and if she ever got over the guilt of living when, had she followed her plans, she would have died. I can only imagine how she's feeling today.

Kenny MacAskill and Alex Salmond should rot in hell for what they've done today. The Obama Administration, and Hillary Clinton in particular, should realize that they've done precisely what they accused the most recent Bush administration of doing: handing over lives for the sake of keeping the oil flowing.  What a flaming pack of hypocrites.  Justice hasn't been served.  Not one one little bit.

And Ghaddafi is laughing all the way to the bank. 

Absolutely fascinating piece in The Atlantic about common-sensical, consumer-based health care reform. 

A small sampling:

{...}Keeping Dad company in the hospital for five weeks had left me befuddled. How can a facility featuring state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment use less-sophisticated information technology than my local sushi bar? How can the ICU stress the importance of sterility when its trash is picked up once daily, and only after flowing onto the floor of a patient’s room? Considering the importance of a patient’s frame of mind to recovery, why are the rooms so cheerless and uncomfortable? In whose interest is the bizarre scheduling of hospital shifts, so that a five-week stay brings an endless string of new personnel assigned to a patient’s care? Why, in other words, has this technologically advanced hospital missed out on the revolution in quality control and customer service that has swept all other consumer-facing industries in the past two generations?

I’m a businessman, and in no sense a health-care expert. But the persistence of bad industry practices—from long lines at the doctor’s office to ever-rising prices to astonishing numbers of preventable deaths—seems beyond all normal logic, and must have an underlying cause. There needs to be a business reason why an industry, year in and year out, would be able to get away with poor customer service, unaffordable prices, and uneven results—a reason my father and so many others are unnecessarily killed.

Like every grieving family member, I looked for someone to blame for my father’s death. But my dad’s doctors weren’t incompetent—on the contrary, his hospital physicians were smart, thoughtful, and hard-working. Nor is he dead because of indifferent nursing—without exception, his nurses were dedicated and compassionate. Nor from financial limitations—he was a Medicare patient, and the issue of expense was never once raised. There were no greedy pharmaceutical companies, evil health insurers, or other popular villains in his particular tragedy.

Indeed, I suspect that our collective search for villains—for someone to blame—has distracted us and our political leaders from addressing the fundamental causes of our nation’s health-care crisis. All of the actors in health care—from doctors to insurers to pharmaceutical companies—work in a heavily regulated, massively subsidized industry full of structural distortions. They all want to serve patients well. But they also all behave rationally in response to the economic incentives those distortions create. Accidentally, but relentlessly, America has built a health-care system with incentives that inexorably generate terrible and perverse results. Incentives that emphasize health care over any other aspect of health and well-being. That emphasize treatment over prevention. That disguise true costs. That favor complexity, and discourage transparent competition based on price or quality. That result in a generational pyramid scheme rather than sustainable financing. And that—most important—remove consumers from our irreplaceable role as the ultimate ensurer of value.

These are the impersonal forces, I’ve come to believe, that explain why things have gone so badly wrong in health care, producing the national dilemma of runaway costs and poorly covered millions. The problems I’ve explored in the past year hardly count as breakthrough discoveries—health-care experts undoubtedly view all of them as old news. But some experts, it seems, have come to see many of these problems as inevitable in any health-care system—as conditions to be patched up, papered over, or worked around, but not problems to be solved.

That’s the premise behind today’s incremental approach to health-care reform. Though details of the legislation are still being negotiated, its principles are a reprise of previous reforms—addressing access to health care by expanding government aid to those without adequate insurance, while attempting to control rising costs through centrally administered initiatives. Some of the ideas now on the table may well be sensible in the context of our current system. But fundamentally, the “comprehensive” reform being contemplated merely cements in place the current system—insurance-based, employment-centered, administratively complex. It addresses the underlying causes of our health-care crisis only obliquely, if at all; indeed, by extending the current system to more people, it will likely increase the ultimate cost of true reform.{...}

 

As the husband put it, this is the debate on health care we should be having, rather than fussing over the morass Obama and Congress has provided.  Goldhill goes after the current system and its system of incentives and the health care industry they have created.  He posits a solution that might actually work. 

It's a crying shame this had to be published in The Atlantic.  I don't generally trust a word they say because they keep Andrew "Master of Trig Trutherism" Sullivan on the payroll and continue to pump him heavily, despite the absolute insanity of his ravings.  Give it a read, though.  It's a long piece, but it's worth your time. 

You knew it was going to happen sometime.  That someone, somewhere would have the temerity to ignore the fact that Hillary has her own job, and would focus on her ex-prez husband. 

Pity the poor, stupid bastard who asked this question. 

After Bill did his envoy thing in North Korea last week, I wondered how she was going to react, because, for all intents and purposes, he completely undermined her.  I believe this is the reaction I've been waiting for.  Bill chatted with people who had deliberately insulted her weeks earlier in an effort to marginalize her, which, of course, doesn't mention that Bubba succeeded where her governmental department had failed, namely in securing the release of American citizens held prisoner by North Korea.  I think it's a fairly safe bet to say she wasn't happy about it.  After all, one must remember that the Clinton Initiative, which a foreigner could easily assume she is part of simply because she's married to Bill, has as one of its chief pillars African debt relief.  In this light, the question the guy asked could be perceived as being a legitimate line of inquiry, and one, had Bubba not stuck his nose in, she probably would have answered because she trades off Bill's success as much as he does hers.  That is the established pattern of their marriage. 

So, do pity the poor bastard who asked the question.  I'm sure he didn't mean to, but he just acted as the club which Hillary used to bash her husband's thick skull. 

Would somebody please report me to Obama's minion, Linda Douglass, as putting out "disinformation" regarding their odious health care reform legislation? 

Seriously. 

You can email the pertinent information here: flag@whitehouse.gov

I'll even go trolling through the archives for you, so you have some links to throw in your email as examples of my unpatriotic treachery.  You can find evidence of my treason here, here, here and here, just for starters. 

I've put out plenty of "disinformation," according to the White House, so by all means, slap on the fetters. 

As has been pointed out in numerous places, this is not about correcting misleading information, or actively combating some disinformation campaign, this is about shutting dissenters up.  What other conclusion could we come to?  This administration has never been about debate or free speech, with their manufactured town hall meetings; their organized grassroots disinformation campaigns to prevent further dissemenation of an investigation into Obama's working relationship with a domestic terrorist; they allowed their friends in the media and local government to go after the one guy who asked the one question to which their candidate didn't give a good answer. According to Obama and his minions, you can shout all the negatives you want about his plans, because no one will listen, but don't you dare make him look like a fool, because if you do, that's when he'll kneecap you.  Before it's just been a bureaucratic-kneecapping.  But now it's turning violent, with union thugs---you know, those same unions who helped get Obama elected and which he's done his level-best to keep paid-off---beating up protestors at town hall meetings. 

It's The Chicago Way. 

They pull a knife, you pull a gun. He sends one of yours to the hospital, you send one of his to the morgue. That's the Chicago Way!

People have pulled this quote out a lot ever since Obama announced his candidacy, but in my opinion, it was a little premature.  Now, however, the similarities are too pronounced to ignore. I mean, seriously: I can't be the only one who sees the Daley Legacy in these actions.  They've gone beyond words and are now enforcing their worldview with fists.  And I'm not talking about those wussy brothers who run the show now.  I'm talking about Papa Daley.  You know, that badass, whose hamfisted running of the City of Chicago and the State of Illinois is the stuff of legend.  

I am not having it. 

Report me.  Please. 

That's the only way this kind of crap will stop.  If enough people gin up the courage to want to be in this "dissenters database" we'll have it beat.  Because, honestly, when has the government ever been able to run a database?  Give me one example of a time that the government actually had good, reliable, up-to-date, accurate information in one of its databases.  Is the "No-Fly List" ringing a bell?  If we swarm it, like a hive of pissed-off bees, we can beat it.  Easily.  I may be an insignificant little bee, but I still have a stinger, and there's no one on which I'd rather use it than someone who wants to shut me up simply because I disagree with them.

Please report me.   

I don't care what happens, and I'm not afraid.  I beat cancer.   Anything these assholes can do to me is downright piddly in comparison to chemo.

So, riddle me this one, joker:  How is it that some conservatives can cheer mightily when the Congressional Progressive Caucus threatens to kill the health care bill in the House because a deal was done with the Blue Dogs to get them on board...yet, when it comes to immigration reform amnesty they still argue heatedly that killing that particular bill was the right thing to do, was all about "conservative principles" and fighting back against the 'RINOs'? 

And, of course, vice versa, because the Dems chortled just as mightily when immigration reform bombed a few years back. 

That's some sweet, sweet hypocrisy you've got going on there, kids. 

Not like I want the damn bill to get passed in any way shape or form, but a blind man on a galloping horse couldn't miss the obvious in this situation.

Well, Bammy has achieved one of his campaign goals: making America popular again.

Barack Obama has restored America’s global standing to where it was before the Bush era, but many in the Muslim world remain hostile, according to a survey published on Thursday.

The Pew Research Center’s annual global attitudes survey indicated that people polled in 25 countries now had a more positive attitude towards the US. The exception was Israel, where approval dipped after President Obama courted the Muslim world in a June speech in Cairo.{...}

 If you want the actual "improvement" numbers, hit the link and you'll get the rundown.  But, the real whopper comes from Madeleine "Foggiest Bottom" Albright, idiot ex-Secretary of State.

“It is certainly better to have a president who is respected and who is popular than who is not,” said Madeleine Albright, former secretary of state, referring to the contrast in international public regard for Mr Obama with that for former president George W. Bush. “We were in a hole in our reputation and leadership... There is a long way to go but it is much better to start here.”

For the most part, however, attitudes were negative in much of the Muslim world, including allies in Turkey and Pakistan. Only 14 percent of Turks gave the US a favourable rating, barely up on last year.

“I personally am a little surprised by the continuing Muslim numbers,” Ms Albright said. She described the Muslim and Western worlds as being in a “very deep rift”, which would “take some time to fix”.

So, according to Madeleine Albright, somehow, a. Barack Obama is now, apparently, the United States of America and b. she couldn't possibly understand how the numbers from Muslim countries could be bad when it comes to America's "popularity."

Barack Fargin' Obama is NOT the United States of America.  He's not God.  He's not Jesus.  He is a politician.  Who happened to get elected, God only knows how, President of the United States of America.  That does not mean he is now the actual country.  One does not equal the other. He is not the land north of Mexico and south of Canada, between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.  I know Europeans are stupid this way, and could actually believe this, but you can't travel to Obama's navel, like you would Yellowstone National Park.  His shoulder is not Chicago.  His ears are not San Francisco.  His dreamy brown eyes are not New York.  He is the president, but he is not America.  How hard is that to understand? 

Oh, yes, I'm probably taking this a little too literally, but how the fuck do you equate America's supposed new popularity with Barack Obama?  America is a country.  It's ridiculous. Barack Obama is one of its citizens.  He is not the country; he's just another citizen, despite his job. He will leave office someday.  You might want to gird your loins for that, because, according to the Constitution, the peaceful handover of power is absolute, and one day he will either get spanked out of office (hopefully) or will leave after two terms.  Are you going to hate my country then, depending upon who's elected?  Who the fuck are you to say which way we should go?  That's our business.  If you want a say in it, move here, gain citizenship, and effin' vote, you assholes.  Otherwise, it's none of your goddamned business.  I would never say, "Oh, I hate Germany because Angela Merkel is Chancellor. I would never visit because she's in charge.  I hate them!"  Why wouldn't I say that?  Because it's none of my goddamned business who the Germans elect to be Chancellor.  Neither is it any of my business to say Ahmadinejad is a good reason to hate Iran. Because then you're proclaiming dislike for millions of people based on the cock-eyed views of one man. It's patently unfair to the people of the country to have their worth judged solely on who happens to be running the joint.

But, apparently, no one has a problem doing that to America.  America's fair game.  We can only be popular if a democrat is at the helm.  

Fuck that.  

Bammy's no better than the rest of us, but, because he's a politician, he might actually be worse. If you came to America, you might learn that the majority of the citizenry hate politicians because they're a bunch of lying windbags, who only look after themselves.  If you think positively of America now that Bammy's in office, well, you're stupid.  America has THREE HUNDRED MILLION people living here other than Bammy.  Come and visit.  You might like the landscape.  You might like some of us.  You might not.  But to base your opinion of a country solely on its elected leadership means you're an uneducated, poorly travelled idiot. 

I can understand how it helps to get things done on an international basis, fair or not, when you've got someone at the helm who is respected by all.  Witness the seemy underbelly of international trade negotiations.  Peter Mandelson---who is now a cabinet member for Gordon Brown and who is now Lord Mandelson to you, you common peon---a few years back was the EU Trade Commissioner, and he made it patently clear he wasn't going to make any concessions on the EU's agricultural subsidies until the US did.  Which was complete and utter bullshit, because President Bush had already said, repeatedly, to the EU that if they made cuts, the US would follow, which, at the time, was a rather large possible concession, meant to move trade talks forward. Bush meant it, and was willing to take the heat from the agricultural community for it if the EU bit.  Mandelson meant his statement, as well, yet the difference was that Mandelson didn't want to make any concessions, because the French would have strung him up by his thumbs if he did, so he used Bush's unpopularity, and the general opinion of him as the bad guy, as a convenient excuse for getting out of actually negotiating for change.  Mandelson was a weasel, and he got away with it, simply because Bush was unpopular.  There are a thousand different examples from the world of IGOs to further this point.  Bush was unpopular from Day One, simply because of who he was and what he represented. No one wanted to do business with him, and, furthermore, people cheered and screamed with delight when Hugo Chavez spoke from the podium at the UN General Assembly when he said he smelled sulfur in the air after Bush spoke.  It's not pretty, but those are the facts.  It helps to be popular.  Or at least unassuming.  43 was neither of those, and it did make things harder for him. 

That aside, why should popularity, of all things, be what greases the skids?  And I'm not talking about "majority wins" here; I'm talking about this absurd notion that someone who is popular is always better.  Why does it matter?  I really dislike this crap, because it means that the only people qualified to get things done, apparently, are the Prom King and Queen, and the Captain of the football team and the cheerleading squad. Get over thinking high school is the ruling paradigm of life, for chrissakes.  Why do you accord more status to the jerk whom everyone likes rather than the spotty geek in the corner whom everyone hates, simply because no one gets them, but who is smarter than everyone else combined?  It makes no sense.  Get a spine already and get over it. 

I've rambled on long enough.  Time to end this post before it gets even more incoherent than it already is. 

As if all the rest wasn't bad enough, the Prez throws like a girl.