Bye Bye Donald

Appears sound, though:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders

 

Oh, cheer me up, why don't you. Him and Osborne. The braying chinless wonder
old Etonians, who have no clue what the real world is, or the issues that
face Fred in the street. Hell's teeth, with all the talent that surely
exists, can't someone find a decent leader of a political party? Damnit, I
liked Charlie Kennedy, and I don't care what he was drinking. I can believe
what was said about David Puttnam praising back bench ordinary MPs, but why
do the decent ones never rise to the surface? Or, if they do, they seem to
die off, or disappear. I really am begining to believe in the inverse square
law of the higher you get.... well, fill in the gaps.

(My local councillor is a good bloke, who does a lot locally and responds
well.)

Ali

 

Hey, he's alright. Rather more of a democratic socialist, as the article
says, than the unreconstructed type, not that I mind those latter. The
articles he's written are excellent. Can I vote for him?

Ali

 

You didn't.

 

I quite agree, but there appears there is nothing else that can be done
to him.

 

You don't need to. But we do need someone nearer home who's worth voting
for.

 

Just take away everything that matters to him, bit by bit, until there's
nothing left.

 

Paul Corfield wrote

Has he ****, the republicans have all ready come out rubbing their hands
in ill disguised glee saying they have just got gifted two whole years
of blaming the democrats for the throwback's inability to govern ahead
of them. Cock-a-hoop they are.

 

Well, back in the summer they were speculating/fantasising about the [then
wholly unrealistic] prospect of winning control of both houses, which would
enable them to impeach him. Let's face it, taking a country to war on a
heady mixture of knowingly bogus intelligence and blatant lies to the
electorate, blowing away $X00bn and 2,800+ US lives [to say nothing of the
chillingly casual imprecision of 50->600,000 Iraqi lives lost], destroying
the entire infrastructure of a working [although admittedly corrupt and
tyrannically administered] nation-state, bombing every ministry except the
energy ministry and parcelling out $Xbn of reconstruction goodies to your
friends is everso slightly more a gross abuse of executive power than simply
blagging the occasional blow-job from a political groupie.

I reckon the Democrats will probably keep this threat in their pocket, for
the time being, as a way of keeping Bush and the Republicans on a very short
chain. Impeachment risks being seen as cheap revenge, and an absence of
dignified statesmanship, and would risk a backlash from the knuckle-draggers
in the 2008 elections. Probably better to pay the long game. Already Bush
has a startled, frightened, haunted look about him, and it's only going to
keep on getting worse for him. His stooges have undoubtedly been telling
him for weeks that it'll be alright on the night. Ha.

 

There is, however, a Speaker of the House, soon to be Nancy Pelosi. If
third in line to the presidency doesn't roughly equate to a leader of
the opposition, I'm not sure what does.

 

Which lead to a classic Bushism on the C4 news last night:

"I thought that we were going to be OK. Shows what I know eh?"

Indeed. I couldn't have put it any better myself. If he is so
appallingly ignorant about his chosen field of expertise (politics)
what does that mean for his other fields of knowledge?

Phil

 

Yabbut, you don't get to vote for her (necessarily) as the next POTUS, do
you.

Ali

 

Excuse me can we just pause and consider the last Pres. A Democrat. He
did absolutely nothing worth talking about and a bit of harm along the
way. I think he was a de-facto criminal too.
The situation now is in check and balance. Both parties need to work and
co-operate and find concensus, that seems to be as it should be.

 

If they are skillful they will take this as a protest vote and use the
two years to build towards a major scoop next time around.

 

Does he have any?

Ali

 

Do you have a clear view of him in daylight, from away down there to
away up there.

 

So producing the first properly balanced Federal budget in decades
wasn't a significant achievement?

As is Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney et. al. And far more blatantly..

Phil

 

Eh?

Ali

 

We don't get to vote for a PM *or* leader of the opposition here. What's
your point?

 

That the leader of the opposition here is actually the person who will stand
against the PM at the next election - they are, therefore the clear
figurehead for the party, unlike the US system.

Ali