Posted on 08/20/2011 10:48:16 AM PDT by smokingfrog
America is a country of mad people governed by buffoons. That's the way a lot of Europeans are content to see it, no matter how much they love the US in other ways. A country of mad people because they are so religious, violent, overweight and in denial about things that look obvious from here but which the flag-wavers over there refuse to get. Governed by buffoons because, for the past half-century, from Lyndon Johnson to George W Bush, no US president was truly respected in much of this continent. Not even Reagan on the right or Clinton on the left. All of them, in various ways, were laughable.
That changed in 2008. With one mighty bound, the nation of mad people became a nation of visionaries, electing not a buffoon but an incredibly cool, incredibly smart, incredibly articulate leader who was so progressive and sensitive that, guess what, he might almost have been one of us. Except that, inconveniently, he wasn't. But that didn't matter. We gave him the Nobel peace prize when he'd only been in office for five minutes and drooled whenever he looked in our direction.
Now, with 15 months to go before the next US presidential election, a spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre is the possibility Barack Obama might not be re-elected. In fact it's more than that. It's the sense, among a lot of Europeans and a lot of progressives – US ones too – that Obama wasn't as great as he seemed and that, as a result, he has allowed the mad people to get their act together again and prepare to elect another buffoon next November. Prejudices confirmed. Comfort zone resumed.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Well, it's certainly been a liberal or radical or pro-Labour paper for that long (go back further and it represented the manufacturers of Manchester), but the house organ of the Communist Party of Britain is the Morning Star (formerly the Daily Worker).
Sorry to spoil the party, but almost everything about this stereotypical view of the US is both patronising and, perhaps worse, wrong. Let's put some serious caveats out there. Let's admit that the Republican right is often very dynamic and effective, admit that Obama has often failed to leverage his power as effectively as he could have, admit that Americans have become increasingly sceptical of big government and worried about deficits, and admit that, in the light of the midterm elections and with the economy sliding, only a fool would dismiss the possibility of a Republican win in 2012. Look at the polls. Seven out of 10 Americans are currently unhappy with Obama's handling of the economy. His job approval ratings have just slumped to 40%. It has to improve if he is to win.
You’re right. I stand corrected.
Kettle first paints an over-the-top parody of typical European views of America, then dismisses it as utter rubbish, as should be obvious to any thinking observer.
So far, so good.
However he then goes on to make one foolish assertion after another, with those assertions fitting quite comfortably within the boundaries of his earlier parody.
Can Kettle possibly be so self-unaware as to fall into such a trap of his own making? His own bias has seemingly overwhelmed any pretense of objectivity that he may have been able to muster.
His “analysis” is so far off the mark as to be laughable. His dismissal of the objectives of the Tea Party as little more than a cover for insinuating religion into government is just as absurd as the delusions of those who attempt to equate the Tea Party with the KKK.
The Guardian is what the New York Times yearns to become...
Euro ankle biters—who here knows what they think? Who here cares what they think? Their day has past. Their childless future will be something between Clockwork Orange and the Northern Caliphate. They are, as the kids say, SO OVER!
“...but there is a lot of convoluted crap in there”
That’s a word for it. Maybe they just didn’t give it a good headline.
I mean, it seemed to me the guy said that the stereotype is that all our presidents since LBJ, ALL of the them have been “Buffoons” who command no respect in Europe and the American public are the mad people who elected them. I guess he means mad in the sense of crazy, not angry. Already he’s missing the point. (I actually don’t think the Brits ever say mad to mean angry, but I could be wrong.)
But, our author reassures us, this is incorrect, because in 2008 we elected the “incredibly cool, incredibly smart, incredibly articulate leader” Barack Hussein Obama mmmm mmmm mmmm.
BUT, and this is a big BUT, next year the mad people might beat out the sane (”sensible”) people and we might elect some religious maniac like Sarah Palin or Michelle Bachmann.
Oddly he doesn’t mention the weirdo Mitt Romney or the other religious maniac Rick Perry.
So, quite frankly, I’m underwhelmed with this fellow’s understanding of American politics. Or even of his own mind, because it seems pretty clear that his only dispute about the idea of us being a nation of maniacs led by a series of clowns is that it’s a stereotype, he seems convinced it’s the TRUTH.
Evidently if we don’t have a young, slim, good looking, LIBERAL President who went to Harvard and whose wife likes expensive clothes, we ain’t got sh*t.
But, it’s good you posted it, because every thing like this that we read only strengthens our resolve.
“I am about as mad as hell...2012 can not come soon enough!!! =.=”
Me, too!
Semper fi, cranked.
“If America would look at everything that’s been done to this once-great country since January of 2008 and choose another 4 years of this, this nation is beyond saving.”
Sad, but true. One can only hope that after the collapse, America can be resurrected like the mythical Phoenix and restored to what the Founders had envisioned.
It’s the Guardian it isn’t just left of center it is positively marxist in its editorial policy.
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