The Accidental President

A friend from Texas recently explained to me that the governorship of his state is largely a ceremonial position and quite ineffectual. The government's legislative agenda is run by the lieutenant governor and the state legislature meets for only one month every two years, so the governor really does little other than play golf and deny the occasional death row plea for clemency.

Eight years ago, the Republican party based the candidacy of George W. Bush for president exclusively on his experience as governor of Texas. He was an alcoholic, draft-dodging ne'er do well who had failed at every enterprise he had ever attempted and once admitted to having done nothing before the age of forty but party. The governorship of Texas was a sinecure bought for him by his undoubtedly disappointed father to keep the boy out of trouble and give him some stability.

To the surprise of all, George Jr. went on to become the most unaccomplished and under qualified candidate for president in US history. The results speak for themselves. The nomination of Sarah Palin for vice-president last week demonstrates that the Republicans see no need to raise the bar. The former major of a small town and governor of one of the least populous states in the union for less than two years, no one can credibly argue that she has the qualifications and experience to assume the presidency, should the need arise.

John McCain's campaign headquarters recently released his medical records covering the last eight years, a file running to some twelve-hundred pages. Combine this with McCain's advanced age and you face the disturbing probability that Sarah Palin would succeed him as president within his first term, should he be elected. That alone should be enough to put Barack Obama in office.

Observing American politics is like driving past the scene of a traffic accident; it's gut wrenching to look at, but you just can't turn away.

Technorati Tags: American,politics,Palin,Bush,election

The Big Picture

Recently, on another blog I read about a new charity that will raise funds to help the long suffering people of the war torn Darfur region of Sudan. A few years ago George Clooney and Don Cheedle went to Darfur to lend their celebrity to the cause of peace. Of course, in spite of these and many other admirable efforts, the dying continues.

China supports Sudan's genocidal government, with complete disregard for its human rights record, in exchange for a secure energy supply. The people in Darfur are being bombed by Chinese made planes and shot with Chinese made guns firing Chinese made bullets. The Chinese government is able to serenely ignore criticism of its actions from western nations, well aware that it is all hypocritical.

At the White House, administration spokesmen in the Press Gallery may emotionally and forcefully decry the violence in Sudan, but downstairs in the Situation Room, George and the boys are content to let the mayhem continue indefinitely. Egypt is a reliable ally in the Middle East and Libya could threaten its western border over simmering territorial disputes. As long as the Libyans are distracted by the violence in Sudan, they are unlikely to make trouble for the Egyptians, or so the logic goes. And the killing goes on

Anyone wishing to actually affect the tragedy of Darfur needs to address the politics. Charity to alleviate the suffering, while a fine thing in itself, without a effort to change the underlying motivations of the major players is like applying a band-aid to a gaping wound; it may make you feel better for having done something, but won't achieve anything of substance. If activists had managed to organize an international boycott of the Beijing Olympics to pressure the Chinese government and made the complicity of the United States in Darfur's torment an issue for the current presidential candidates, it would have done more to force a peaceful solution than any amount of energy biscuits and re-hydration salts ever could

Decline of the American Empire Confirmed

In a previous post I wrote about the Decline of the American Empire. Imagine my surprise that none other than the US intelligence establishment confirms my predictions, as reported by the Washington Post.

The boys from Foggy Bottom reiterated everything I had said and added some interesting detail. The report suggest that environmental degradation and climate change will be the greatest security threat to the United States in the future, something that the Pentagon has been saying for years. How ironic that Bush Jr has spent most of his presidency obsessively focused on the secondary threat of terrorism, which the CIA report mentions as a small and diminishing concern, while deliberately ignoring the far greater danger.

Bush Jr says that he is confident that the judgement of history with exonerate his actions. I suspect that he may need to go into hiding when all the chickens come home to roost. Barrack Obama has intimated the possibility of a criminal investigation into the Bush administration.

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