PJ: I had to include this opinion piece since it answers many questions that we have about the enigmatic Sarah Palin's rise in American politics. We've all wondered why the US media gives her a pass even as she attacks them. Why they cover her tweets as if they were news without balancing the story? Why don't they insist that she submit to the same interviews that her peers must sit to be taken seriously. Why does the media let itself be bullied by this intellectual light weight? Why don't they hold her feet to the fire like every other politician in the country? Why must this politician be treated with Kidd gloves when others are subjected to tough questioning? Why doesn't Sarah Palin get what she deserves?
Los Angeles Times
Op-Ed
Why Sarah Palin doesn't get what she deserves
She forces her critics to choose between the roles of merciless oppressor and guilt-ridden enabler.
By Meghan Daum
April 17, 2011
OK, so Sarah Palin probably isn't running for president. She may have told Fox News' Greta Van Susteren that she was "tempted" because she was "wondering who the heck is going to be out there with a servant's heart willing to serve the American people." But evidence suggests there's not a lot to wonder about when it comes to her candidacy.
Palin's approval ratings have never been lower. A CNN poll showed that among Republican and Republican-leaning voters, only 12% wanted Pain as the nominee. A Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 17% of GOP voters and 28% of Republican-leaning independents put her in the "strongly unfavorable" category. Even Palin's longtime champion, William Kristol, has said she's "unlikely to be" and "probably shouldn't be" the GOP nominee.
In other words, Palin-a-phobes, the danger is receding. The apocalypse may be averted. You might not need to move to Canada after all.
But even as she edges off the political stage, Palin still has the power not just to fascinate but to obsess us. The woman could probably disappear from public life, retreating to a yurt somewhere off the grid for a second career as a taxidermist, and still get tapped constantly as a cultural and political touchstone.
Many who dislike her would prefer that tapping to sound more like hammering. "You should write about her more often," friends and readers tell me on a weekly basis. They don't mean in a Hallmark card kind of way.
"Why don't you take the gloves off?" they ask. "Admit the obvious: Palin's rocket ride to political fame says less about her talents than it does about the staggering cynicism of contemporary media and politics. Why don't you point out that the cohort that bemoans the demise of the nuclear family and the debased, disaffected nature of popular culture is the same one that embraces a woman who exploits her daughter's out-of-wedlock motherhood, communicates chiefly through Facebook and Twitter and puts herself on reality TV?"
I'd love to say these things. I'd love to rent billboards in all 50 states and splash these things across them. Instead, I've bent over backward to be levelheaded about Palin's whole gestalt. I've made it clear I don't think highly of her politics, but I also allowed that her speech at the 2008 GOP convention was actually quite good, and I recognized that her version of the struggle to "have it all" had tremendous appeal (at least back when she seemed to be genuinely struggling). I even defended her right to call herself a feminist: As long as progressive-minded women lack the guts to claim the term for themselves, it is effectively up for grabs.
I meant it all. Palin has gumption, and for the record, I think she was the victim not only of sexism but ugly classism too. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't have gone after her harder on many fronts. I didn't do it because I didn't want to come across as a mean-spirited smarty-pants (I know, many of you think I did anyway; all I can say is that you should have seen the first drafts.)
The funny (and sad) thing about that is that I had no such hang-ups when I wrote about the rest of the players in the 2008 election. Why? Because everyone knew they could take it.
Palin could take it too, of course. But because the Palin machine ingeniously rebrands any criticism — the nasty and the evenhanded alike — as bilious emanations of the "lamestream media" (this being code for liberal elitist, which is code for educated, which in turn is code for a pathetic disconnection from gut, a.k.a. moral, instinct), it's all but impossible to challenge her without being discredited as a biased and therefore unqualified source.
And that's not the only reason why we can't bring ourselves to take the gloves off with Palin. It's impossible not to feel like we're punching shamefully below our weight, which everyone knows is against the rules. Palin lacks the intellectual, analytical and rhetorical skills to have a competent discussion about policy or much else. She is handicapped not only by a lack of education, experience and curiosity about the world (wearing a Star of David in Israel doesn't count), but by a speaking style that often collapses under the weight of disjointed, undiagrammable sentences. She is, in terms of the political arena, easily outclassed.
Joe Biden had to go easy on her during the vice presidential debates so as not to look like the big bad wolf. Among professional journalists (as opposed to foaming-at-the-mouth partisans), there was a clear attempt not to come across like a browbeater.
Some, like CNN's Campbell Brown, responded elegantly and cleverly, insinuating that the assumption that Palin was a delicate flower who couldn't handle the press was a form of sexism and infantilization on the part of the McCain campaign. Others, like ABC's Charlie Gibson and CBS' Katie Couric, both of whom conducted famously damning interviews with Palin, found themselves attacked as anti-Palin merely for asking a straight question.
Couric in particular made a strenuous effort at "just the facts" reporting. In "Big Girls Don't Cry," Rebecca Traister's book about women and the 2008 election, Couric says, "During the course of the interview I made sure I was as nonjudgmental as possible, that I had no facial affect, that I didn't even cock my head when I didn't understand what she was saying."
Even Traister, an unabashed liberal and feminist who writes for the left-leaning online magazine Salon, is evidence of the way thoughtful writers treat Palin as a special-needs case. Traister offers a rigorous dissection of the hypocrisy and incoherence of Palin's platform and persona, but nowhere in the book does she swat Palin with the grizzly bear-like strength she could have summoned. She doesn't come close to doing what my friends and readers (and no doubt her friends and readers) want her to do, which is to rip the lady to shreds and move on.
Alas, we cannot. Not only because it would be cheap and lazy and unbecoming, but also because Palin is too well-shielded by her own incompetence. By casting herself as the less privileged, less polished outsider in the fancy school, she fashions the rest of us into playground bullies (ironic, given her predilection for bullying language) who taunt her with big vocabularies and book learning and obsession with nuance. By playing the victim (ironic, given how closely she associates victimhood with liberal whining), Palin forces her critics to choose between the roles of merciless oppressor and guilt-ridden enabler. And since the merciless oppressor part is already played ably by various screamers on blogs, cable TV and Internet comment boards, writers like me have taken the other route, leaning over so far backward to avoid saying the obvious that we sometimes can't get enough air in our lungs to say much at all.
That's why I truly hope Palin continues to fight her temptation to run for president. If there was ever a candidate who brought out the worst in people, who encouraged hollow rejoinders but made honest analysis almost impossible, it is she. Besides, if she did run, I'd have to write about her. And all the yoga in the world wouldn't keep my spine from eventually breaking from those backbends.
mdaum@latimescolumnists.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-daum-palin-20110417,0,7272287.column
Monday, April 25, 2011
Australia: Congresswoman Giffords inspires the world
PJ: Months ago, the only thing that many knew about Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was that she was targeted by the right (and most specifically on Sarah Palin's crosshairs map) for defeat in her reelection bid for her Arizona Congressional seat. After winning reelection, Ms. Giffords became the target of a deranged gunman who shot her at close range. The first reports that Ms. Giffords had died in the attack were later corrected to say that she was in critical condition.
Ms. Giffords amazing recovery is heralded as miraculous. It is a story of medical science at its best and one woman's drive with the incredible support of family, friends and colleagues and an entire nation who stand by her.
Sydney Morning Herald
Shot US politician to watch shuttle launch
US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' doctors say they feel "very comfortable with her travelling," in anticipation she will attend her astronaut husband's space shuttle launch on Friday.
The Democratic lawmaker was shot once through the head during a January 8 shooting rampage that killed six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, at an outdoor meeting she was hosting in Tuscon, Arizona.
Giffords was transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann rehabilitation hospital in Houston, Texas, in late January.
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"I can't say I notice improvement every day, but I can every few days," NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, the congresswoman's husband, told The Arizona Republic in an article published on Sunday.
Kelly is the commander of the space shuttle Endeavour's final mission, scheduled to launch Friday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Giffords has said she wants to attend the launch, and Dong Kim, the Memorial Hermann neurosurgeon who oversees Giffords' care, indicated her wish will be granted.
"We're very comfortable with her travelling," he told the newspaper.
ABC News reported, meanwhile, that doctors have formally approved the trip to Florida.
Kim said Giffords "is maybe in the top one per cent of patients in terms of how far she's come, and how quickly she's gotten there. I think the question, then, becomes, how far is she going to go?"
Surgery is scheduled in May to repair a section of her skull with a cranial implant.
Surgeons in Tucson tried to preserve the portion they removed but it is now infected.
Giffords does rehabilitation with a grocery cart and bowling ball, the Republic reported.
She can stand on her own and walk a bit, but use of her right leg is still improving.
She is learning to write with her left hand.
"Her left side is perfect," said Giffords' chief of staff Pia Carusone.
"She can do whatever you can do."
Giffords is aware that she was shot but hasn't been told that the shooting victims included her friends and colleagues or a 9-year-old girl, and three others.
"The challenge is she knows what she wants to say, and she knows everything that's going on around her," Carusone said, but can't always express it.
"It's frustrating for her. She'll sigh out of exasperation."
Alleged gunman Jared Loughner has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
The congresswoman's parents, Gloria and Spencer, have rarely left their daughter since she was shot, according to the newspaper.
Friends and staff have covered the walls of her room with poster-sized photos of joyous events such as her wedding and hiking in the Grand Canyon.
She remembers the events, which doctors say is a good sign.
"I want to work," she tells her visiting staffers, who bring her articles and office memos about their work.
Her husband visits in the morning, bringing coffee and the newspaper, before going to work at NASA.
He returns at night.
The newspaper said Kelly sometimes naps with his wife in her twin-size hospital bed.
AFP
http://www.smh.com.au/world/shot-us-politician-to-watch-shuttle-launch-20110425-1dt9u.html
Ms. Giffords amazing recovery is heralded as miraculous. It is a story of medical science at its best and one woman's drive with the incredible support of family, friends and colleagues and an entire nation who stand by her.
Sydney Morning Herald
Shot US politician to watch shuttle launch
US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords' doctors say they feel "very comfortable with her travelling," in anticipation she will attend her astronaut husband's space shuttle launch on Friday.
The Democratic lawmaker was shot once through the head during a January 8 shooting rampage that killed six people, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl, at an outdoor meeting she was hosting in Tuscon, Arizona.
Giffords was transferred to TIRR Memorial Hermann rehabilitation hospital in Houston, Texas, in late January.
Advertisement: Story continues below
"I can't say I notice improvement every day, but I can every few days," NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, the congresswoman's husband, told The Arizona Republic in an article published on Sunday.
Kelly is the commander of the space shuttle Endeavour's final mission, scheduled to launch Friday from NASA's Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
Giffords has said she wants to attend the launch, and Dong Kim, the Memorial Hermann neurosurgeon who oversees Giffords' care, indicated her wish will be granted.
"We're very comfortable with her travelling," he told the newspaper.
ABC News reported, meanwhile, that doctors have formally approved the trip to Florida.
Kim said Giffords "is maybe in the top one per cent of patients in terms of how far she's come, and how quickly she's gotten there. I think the question, then, becomes, how far is she going to go?"
Surgery is scheduled in May to repair a section of her skull with a cranial implant.
Surgeons in Tucson tried to preserve the portion they removed but it is now infected.
Giffords does rehabilitation with a grocery cart and bowling ball, the Republic reported.
She can stand on her own and walk a bit, but use of her right leg is still improving.
She is learning to write with her left hand.
"Her left side is perfect," said Giffords' chief of staff Pia Carusone.
"She can do whatever you can do."
Giffords is aware that she was shot but hasn't been told that the shooting victims included her friends and colleagues or a 9-year-old girl, and three others.
"The challenge is she knows what she wants to say, and she knows everything that's going on around her," Carusone said, but can't always express it.
"It's frustrating for her. She'll sigh out of exasperation."
Alleged gunman Jared Loughner has pleaded not guilty to all of the charges.
The congresswoman's parents, Gloria and Spencer, have rarely left their daughter since she was shot, according to the newspaper.
Friends and staff have covered the walls of her room with poster-sized photos of joyous events such as her wedding and hiking in the Grand Canyon.
She remembers the events, which doctors say is a good sign.
"I want to work," she tells her visiting staffers, who bring her articles and office memos about their work.
Her husband visits in the morning, bringing coffee and the newspaper, before going to work at NASA.
He returns at night.
The newspaper said Kelly sometimes naps with his wife in her twin-size hospital bed.
AFP
http://www.smh.com.au/world/shot-us-politician-to-watch-shuttle-launch-20110425-1dt9u.html
Middle East: Guantanamo files
PJ: The Obama administration's pledge to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay proved nearly impossibly since many in the US refused to allow detainees to set foot on US soil to face trial or be imprisoned within the country. But the continued operation of the facility does nothing to change the negative perception about America's hypocrisy of moral and legal values. The US is the world's leading critic of other country's human rights violations while, under the Bush administration, it fostered imprisonment without charge as well as "enhanced interrogation" methods that, if used by any other country would have been labeled torture. Closing Guantanamo, charging inmates and conducting fair trials would be the best thing that the US could do to begin rebuilding an image that has been severely tarnished.
Al Jazeera
'Guantanamo files': Dozens held were innocent
Leaked files reveal details of interrogations of "high-risk" detainees, but suggest many innocents were also rounded up.
The United States released dozens of so-called "high-risk" detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison facility and held more than 150 innocent men for years, according to new reports about a trove of leaked military documents.
The more than 700 classified military files, part of a massive cache of secret documents leaked to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, were made available to select US and European media outlets and made public on Sunday.
It was not clear if the media outlets published the documents with the consent of WikiLeaks - and it was not immediately possible to independently verify all of the leaked documents.
The files are reported to reveal new information about some of the men held at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including details of the more than 700 detainee interrogations and evidence the US had collected against the "terror" suspects.
The files - called Detainee Assessment Briefs or DABs - describe the security intelligence value of the detainees and whether they would be a threat to the US and its allies if released.
'High-risk' threat
To date, 604 inmates have been transferred out of Guantanamo while 172 remain detained.
Thousands of pages of the files are reported to reveal that most of the prisoners who remain at Guantanamo - 130 of them - have been rated as posing a "high-risk'" threat to the US if they are freed without rehabilitation or supervision.
Even more of the George W Bush-era "war on terror" suspects were branded "high-risk" before being released or handed to other governments, The New York Times, one of the newspapers that received the documents, reported.
The documents show some inmates were described as more dangerous than previously known to the public and could complicate efforts by the US to transfer detainees out of the prison.
However, the documents also show that dozens of detainees were found to be innocent, after being held for lengthy periods.
At least 150 people were innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including drivers, farmers and chefs, who were rounded up as part of frantic intelligence gathering, and then detained for years.
In several cases, senior US commanders were said to have concluded that there is "no reason recorded for transfer".
Al Jazeera file
The documents also show instances in which authorities were concerned less with containing dangerous suspects than on extracting intelligence.
Sami al-Hajj was working as an Al Jazeera cameraman when he was arrested in 2001 and sent to Guantanamo
One file shows that Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera journalist held at Guantanamo for six years, was detained partly in order to be interrogated about the news network.
His file states that one of the reasons he was detained was "to provide information on … the Al Jazeera news network's training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network's acquisition of a video of UBL [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL".
Al-Hajj was released in 2008 and has since returned to work for Al Jazeera.
Hundreds of other detainees reportedly underwent aggressive interrogation techniques before it was determined that they were low-level fighters.
Legal limbo
The administration of US president Barack Obama criticised the publication of the files as "unfortunate", calling them "sensitive information".
"It is unfortunate that several news organisations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks concerning the Guantanamo detention facility,'' ambassador Daniel Fried, the Obama administration's special envoy on detainee issues, and Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell, said in a joint statement.
But they added that the documents were out of date, and that the administration's Guantanamo review panel, established in January 2009, had made its own assessments.
"The assessments of the Guantanamo Review Task Force have not been compromised to WikiLeaks. Thus, any given DAB (Detainee Assessment Briefs) illegally obtained and released by WikiLeaks may or may not represent the current view of a given detainee."
Obama pledged two years ago to close the prison, but it remains in legal limbo.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/04/201142561524783918.html
Al Jazeera
'Guantanamo files': Dozens held were innocent
Leaked files reveal details of interrogations of "high-risk" detainees, but suggest many innocents were also rounded up.
The United States released dozens of so-called "high-risk" detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison facility and held more than 150 innocent men for years, according to new reports about a trove of leaked military documents.
The more than 700 classified military files, part of a massive cache of secret documents leaked to the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, were made available to select US and European media outlets and made public on Sunday.
It was not clear if the media outlets published the documents with the consent of WikiLeaks - and it was not immediately possible to independently verify all of the leaked documents.
The files are reported to reveal new information about some of the men held at the US prison facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, including details of the more than 700 detainee interrogations and evidence the US had collected against the "terror" suspects.
The files - called Detainee Assessment Briefs or DABs - describe the security intelligence value of the detainees and whether they would be a threat to the US and its allies if released.
'High-risk' threat
To date, 604 inmates have been transferred out of Guantanamo while 172 remain detained.
Thousands of pages of the files are reported to reveal that most of the prisoners who remain at Guantanamo - 130 of them - have been rated as posing a "high-risk'" threat to the US if they are freed without rehabilitation or supervision.
Even more of the George W Bush-era "war on terror" suspects were branded "high-risk" before being released or handed to other governments, The New York Times, one of the newspapers that received the documents, reported.
The documents show some inmates were described as more dangerous than previously known to the public and could complicate efforts by the US to transfer detainees out of the prison.
However, the documents also show that dozens of detainees were found to be innocent, after being held for lengthy periods.
At least 150 people were innocent Afghans or Pakistanis, including drivers, farmers and chefs, who were rounded up as part of frantic intelligence gathering, and then detained for years.
In several cases, senior US commanders were said to have concluded that there is "no reason recorded for transfer".
Al Jazeera file
The documents also show instances in which authorities were concerned less with containing dangerous suspects than on extracting intelligence.
Sami al-Hajj was working as an Al Jazeera cameraman when he was arrested in 2001 and sent to Guantanamo
One file shows that Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera journalist held at Guantanamo for six years, was detained partly in order to be interrogated about the news network.
His file states that one of the reasons he was detained was "to provide information on … the Al Jazeera news network's training programme, telecommunications equipment, and newsgathering operations in Chechnya, Kosovo and Afghanistan, including the network's acquisition of a video of UBL [Osama bin Laden] and a subsequent interview with UBL".
Al-Hajj was released in 2008 and has since returned to work for Al Jazeera.
Hundreds of other detainees reportedly underwent aggressive interrogation techniques before it was determined that they were low-level fighters.
Legal limbo
The administration of US president Barack Obama criticised the publication of the files as "unfortunate", calling them "sensitive information".
"It is unfortunate that several news organisations have made the decision to publish numerous documents obtained illegally by WikiLeaks concerning the Guantanamo detention facility,'' ambassador Daniel Fried, the Obama administration's special envoy on detainee issues, and Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell, said in a joint statement.
But they added that the documents were out of date, and that the administration's Guantanamo review panel, established in January 2009, had made its own assessments.
"The assessments of the Guantanamo Review Task Force have not been compromised to WikiLeaks. Thus, any given DAB (Detainee Assessment Briefs) illegally obtained and released by WikiLeaks may or may not represent the current view of a given detainee."
Obama pledged two years ago to close the prison, but it remains in legal limbo.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/04/201142561524783918.html
UK: Americans and the Royals
PJ: As most Brits (I count myself in that number) go about their normal lives this coming week-end, many in North America will be tuning in to watch the Royal nuptials. What is it about the Royals that attracts so many Americans?
The Independent
The Regal Republic: Why are Americans obsessed with the Royal family?
Americans' obsession with the Royal family expresses a longing for a leadership wreathed in pomp and circumstance, says Rupert Cornwell. Do they wish they hadn't cast off the monarchy?
Next week, an American friend is making the 400-mile trip from Washington DC to Wilmington, North Carolina for a wedding.
Given that the ceremony is taking place on the other side of the Atlantic at 6am local time, the invitees (for some reason, it is an all-female event) may be forgiven if they watch the exchange of vows on television en peignoir, before donning their finery for the reception at 11am. The menu might be described as Gone-With-The-Wind genteel: a mix of dainties ranging from cheese and raisin wafers and ham biscuits to cucumber sandwiches, strawberries and little cakes with caramel icing, washed down with champagne, white wine or southern iced tea. Dixie is always said to have had a soft spot for the House of Windsor.
The nuptials in question are, of course, those of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Our friend's odyssey is unusual, but hardly exceptional given the circumstances. If my own trip back to London this month is anything to go by, America is more into this wedding than even Britain. We've already had the made-for-TV movie William & Kate ("Do yourself a favour and stick your head in the oven," was one critic's advice to viewers). The morning shows have been in saturation-coverage mode for days now, while America's zillion-dollar television news anchors will be based most of this week in London. The rumour however is unfounded that the networks asked the Palace to push back the wedding to early afternoon to accommodate the US domestic audience.
Instead, hotels and restaurants in cities across the country will be holding pre-dawn (in the case of the West Coast, middle-of-the-night) parties to mark the event, live. And you may be sure that Wilmington is but one of dozens, probably hundreds, of private events taking place across the country on 29 April. All of which raises the question: why the fuss? Having gone to such lengths to break free from a British monarch 235 years ago, why are Americans so besotted now by the marriage of one of his distant descendants?
The obvious answer is our age's obsession with celebrity. The royals are the ultimate celebrities. They did nothing to earn it, they were born with it – which of course only makes celebrity even more potent. They are the supreme curiosity, famous because they are famous. In the giant Disneyland that Britain is for many Americans, the Royal Family is exhibit A. But there is more to it than that. For one thing, only in the closing stages before the War of Independence was the colonists' anger directed at George III; the government in London, not the King himself, was until then the object of their resentment.
Today the country sees itself as thoroughly egalitarian, but it might easily have taken another path. In the Republic's early days, some wanted to give the President the title of "His Exalted High Mightiness". Nonetheless, British royalty fills a gap in American life. True, the Kennedys are often described as America's royal family, but that designation owes almost everything to the style and grace of JFK (exceeding that of any real king) and to the tragically early death that elevated him to legend. In purely dynastic terms, the Bushes now out-do the Kennedys: a senator, two presidents and a couple of big-state governors, spanning three generations, surely trump a single President, three senators and a handful of congressmen covering only two generations?
But unlike the Kennedys – or even the Clintons – the Bushes have never quite hit America's royal sweet spot. The closest thing to a royal wedding here was not Jenna Bush's marriage in 2008 (when her father George W. was still President) but Chelsea Clinton's nuptials last summer, almost a decade after her father left the White House. And now, with Teddy Kennedy gone, and no sign of a successor in the next generation, the Kennedys face their own version of public extinction. In a decade or two, they may be no more than a folk memory, as remote from the present day as the Tafts or the Roosevelts.
Indeed, in a country where money is the measure of most things, America's nearest equivalent to royalty is perhaps to be found in business, not in politics; in dynasties like the Du Ponts or the Fords, and most obviously the Rockefellers – still still going strong five generations after Standard Oil was founded in the late 19th century, still unimaginably wealthy, and still dispensing vast sums to philanthropic causes, as if to atone for the ruthless means by which John D Rockefeller, prototypical robber baron, built his original fortune. Such is noblesse oblige in today's America.
But none of this is the real thing. The Kennedys, the Bushes, the Clintons, not even the Rockefellers – none of them function like "an intricate tapestry that hangs in the background of everyday events", to borrow the feliticious phrase of Raymond Seitz, the former US Ambassador to the Court of St James's. So when the Americans see the real thing they love it. And never more than now.
This is the right wedding, at the right time. For one thing, in the US as in Britain, these are tough economic times; a royal wedding is a splendid distraction. For another, the Windsors are on something of a roll here. Recent films such as Helen Mirren's The Queen and the Oscar-winning The King's Speech have been smash hits, above all because they de-mythologised the Royal Family by making it if not familiar, at least poignantly human. Both, too, have been reminders of the sheer durability of the monarchy, and of this monarch in particular. The little girl playing with her father in The King's Speech is the very same person who six decades later struggled in The Queen to respond to Diana's death – and who now, 14 years after that, is about to become grandmother-in-law to Kate Middleton.
During that time, Americans have avidly followed the dramas, the scandals and the pratfalls of her children and their spouses. But they also realise that the show has been kept on the road by the Queen's duteousness, her subordination of self to office, by her sheer professionalism. Apart from the Diana wobble in 1997, she has barely put a foot wrong. If she had, or had she died young, it is conceivable Americans might not even have a royal wedding to savour now.
As it is, the US has nothing to compare. The Queen inherits her job, but its head of state emerges from a cut-throat election process every four or eight years. At regular intervals the country must get used to a new President and First Lady. Queen Elizabeth II, by contrast, is on her 12th prime minister – and for that matter her 12th American president (though Eisenhower had taken over by the time of her coronation, Harry Truman was in the White House when she ascended the throne in 1952). In London and Washington, governments come and go, but thanks to the Queen, the British monarchy just keeps ticking away, like an ancient grandfather clock in the drawing room. Every now and then you check the movement; but otherwise, to keep the instrument looking its best, just a good polish is needed – and what better polish than a royal wedding?
This one, moreover, isn't just any royalwedding for Americans. To use that tiresome Americanism, it also offers "closure" of a kind to a royal drama matched in modern times only by the abdication crisis of 1936 (when this Queen's uncle gave up the throne to marry, you will remember, an American). When Americans think royalty, they still think Diana. Her own marriage in 1981, its tumultuous aftermath and then her death, transfixed them. Now the first-born son who looks so like his mother is marrying. Diana was never to be Queen; but in William the future King her destiny is to be fulfilled. On the other side of the Atlantic, this is the real storyline of 29 April.
Now none of the above is to suggest that the US is starting to wonder if it made a mistake in casting off the monarchy 235 years ago. Republicanism is in the country's official genetic code; one reason the constitution bars a president from seeking a third term is precisely to avoid infection by the royal virus. Americans like their presidents accessible, the sort of person you could have a beer with. They could not stand an office wreathed in pomp and circumstance, sealed off from the general populace, could they? The truth is, in many respects, that's what they've got.
Like it or not, a president is in part a king. He is the commander-in-chief. His motorcade is like an armoured regiment on the move, and the retinue that accompanies him on his foreign travels could be the mediaeval court during a royal progress. Unlike British royals, US presidents don't have to cope with phone hackers (secret Oval Office taping systems and unsuspected live microphones tend to be their nemesis). Even so, the gossip columns pick over the minutiae of a White House state dinner far more avidly than the British press would ever report on a Buckingham Palace banquet. Michelle Obama's wardrobe is accorded Diana-like scrutiny, the Queen's corgis are anonymous mutts comparedwith a US presidential pet. Buckingham Palace is an oasis of privacy compared with the goldfish bowl in which an American president lives.
Of course, he can't go too far: Richard Nixon, ever clumsy, made a fool of himself when he tried to introduce White House ceremonial guards in fancy tunics and toy soldier hats. But a president ignores the regal component of his office at his peril. Ronald Reagan understood that truth instinctively – indeed, by casting himself as disengaged king, he probably saved himself from impeachment in the Iran-Contra scandal. His predecessor Jimmy Carter went to the opposite extreme, presenting himself as a no-frills, no- formality Everyman, which may be one explanation why Americans never warmed to him.
And might not our fusty inherited monarchy, for all its scandals and silliness, these days have one other appeal? The Royal family may be dysfunctional on occasion, but at least its failings have purely entertainment value. And is it really more dysfunctional than America's elected governments, which actually have to run the country? In an age when US politics is so polarised that politicians can't even agree on where President Obama was born, let alone on action to tackle the country's fundamental problems, the notion of an unelected head of state, perched above the fray, is almost refreshing. Whatever else, you can't play party politics with the Wills-Kate union.
So the US, like Britain, plans to sit back and enjoy the show. But one final question remains: why the fascination with our royal wedding and not other people's? Ten months ago, the heir to the Swedish throne married a commoner. The roles were reversed; this time crown princess Victoria was marrying a man called Daniel Westling, her former fitness instructor. The couple were young and attractive, and royals from Europe and beyond attended the occasion in droves. The wedding procession was four miles long with a spectacular segment by royal barge across Stockholm's inner harbour. Yet Americans saw, heard and read next to nothing about it.
But then again, the US was never a colony of Sweden. The two countries do not share a language, nor did they fight against each other in the early 19th century, then alongside each other in most of the 20th and 21st century's great wars. Those are the links between America and Britain that underpin the transatlantic fascination with the Windsor/Middleton nuptials, beyond the simple enjoyment of a rattling good show. They explain in part why the ladies will be whooping it up in North Carolina next weekend. Indeed put these ties together – and you've got, well, a special relationship.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/the-regal-republic-why-are-americans-obsessed-with-the-royal-family-2274357.html
The Independent
The Regal Republic: Why are Americans obsessed with the Royal family?
Americans' obsession with the Royal family expresses a longing for a leadership wreathed in pomp and circumstance, says Rupert Cornwell. Do they wish they hadn't cast off the monarchy?
Next week, an American friend is making the 400-mile trip from Washington DC to Wilmington, North Carolina for a wedding.
Given that the ceremony is taking place on the other side of the Atlantic at 6am local time, the invitees (for some reason, it is an all-female event) may be forgiven if they watch the exchange of vows on television en peignoir, before donning their finery for the reception at 11am. The menu might be described as Gone-With-The-Wind genteel: a mix of dainties ranging from cheese and raisin wafers and ham biscuits to cucumber sandwiches, strawberries and little cakes with caramel icing, washed down with champagne, white wine or southern iced tea. Dixie is always said to have had a soft spot for the House of Windsor.
The nuptials in question are, of course, those of Prince William and Kate Middleton. Our friend's odyssey is unusual, but hardly exceptional given the circumstances. If my own trip back to London this month is anything to go by, America is more into this wedding than even Britain. We've already had the made-for-TV movie William & Kate ("Do yourself a favour and stick your head in the oven," was one critic's advice to viewers). The morning shows have been in saturation-coverage mode for days now, while America's zillion-dollar television news anchors will be based most of this week in London. The rumour however is unfounded that the networks asked the Palace to push back the wedding to early afternoon to accommodate the US domestic audience.
Instead, hotels and restaurants in cities across the country will be holding pre-dawn (in the case of the West Coast, middle-of-the-night) parties to mark the event, live. And you may be sure that Wilmington is but one of dozens, probably hundreds, of private events taking place across the country on 29 April. All of which raises the question: why the fuss? Having gone to such lengths to break free from a British monarch 235 years ago, why are Americans so besotted now by the marriage of one of his distant descendants?
The obvious answer is our age's obsession with celebrity. The royals are the ultimate celebrities. They did nothing to earn it, they were born with it – which of course only makes celebrity even more potent. They are the supreme curiosity, famous because they are famous. In the giant Disneyland that Britain is for many Americans, the Royal Family is exhibit A. But there is more to it than that. For one thing, only in the closing stages before the War of Independence was the colonists' anger directed at George III; the government in London, not the King himself, was until then the object of their resentment.
Today the country sees itself as thoroughly egalitarian, but it might easily have taken another path. In the Republic's early days, some wanted to give the President the title of "His Exalted High Mightiness". Nonetheless, British royalty fills a gap in American life. True, the Kennedys are often described as America's royal family, but that designation owes almost everything to the style and grace of JFK (exceeding that of any real king) and to the tragically early death that elevated him to legend. In purely dynastic terms, the Bushes now out-do the Kennedys: a senator, two presidents and a couple of big-state governors, spanning three generations, surely trump a single President, three senators and a handful of congressmen covering only two generations?
But unlike the Kennedys – or even the Clintons – the Bushes have never quite hit America's royal sweet spot. The closest thing to a royal wedding here was not Jenna Bush's marriage in 2008 (when her father George W. was still President) but Chelsea Clinton's nuptials last summer, almost a decade after her father left the White House. And now, with Teddy Kennedy gone, and no sign of a successor in the next generation, the Kennedys face their own version of public extinction. In a decade or two, they may be no more than a folk memory, as remote from the present day as the Tafts or the Roosevelts.
Indeed, in a country where money is the measure of most things, America's nearest equivalent to royalty is perhaps to be found in business, not in politics; in dynasties like the Du Ponts or the Fords, and most obviously the Rockefellers – still still going strong five generations after Standard Oil was founded in the late 19th century, still unimaginably wealthy, and still dispensing vast sums to philanthropic causes, as if to atone for the ruthless means by which John D Rockefeller, prototypical robber baron, built his original fortune. Such is noblesse oblige in today's America.
But none of this is the real thing. The Kennedys, the Bushes, the Clintons, not even the Rockefellers – none of them function like "an intricate tapestry that hangs in the background of everyday events", to borrow the feliticious phrase of Raymond Seitz, the former US Ambassador to the Court of St James's. So when the Americans see the real thing they love it. And never more than now.
This is the right wedding, at the right time. For one thing, in the US as in Britain, these are tough economic times; a royal wedding is a splendid distraction. For another, the Windsors are on something of a roll here. Recent films such as Helen Mirren's The Queen and the Oscar-winning The King's Speech have been smash hits, above all because they de-mythologised the Royal Family by making it if not familiar, at least poignantly human. Both, too, have been reminders of the sheer durability of the monarchy, and of this monarch in particular. The little girl playing with her father in The King's Speech is the very same person who six decades later struggled in The Queen to respond to Diana's death – and who now, 14 years after that, is about to become grandmother-in-law to Kate Middleton.
During that time, Americans have avidly followed the dramas, the scandals and the pratfalls of her children and their spouses. But they also realise that the show has been kept on the road by the Queen's duteousness, her subordination of self to office, by her sheer professionalism. Apart from the Diana wobble in 1997, she has barely put a foot wrong. If she had, or had she died young, it is conceivable Americans might not even have a royal wedding to savour now.
As it is, the US has nothing to compare. The Queen inherits her job, but its head of state emerges from a cut-throat election process every four or eight years. At regular intervals the country must get used to a new President and First Lady. Queen Elizabeth II, by contrast, is on her 12th prime minister – and for that matter her 12th American president (though Eisenhower had taken over by the time of her coronation, Harry Truman was in the White House when she ascended the throne in 1952). In London and Washington, governments come and go, but thanks to the Queen, the British monarchy just keeps ticking away, like an ancient grandfather clock in the drawing room. Every now and then you check the movement; but otherwise, to keep the instrument looking its best, just a good polish is needed – and what better polish than a royal wedding?
This one, moreover, isn't just any royalwedding for Americans. To use that tiresome Americanism, it also offers "closure" of a kind to a royal drama matched in modern times only by the abdication crisis of 1936 (when this Queen's uncle gave up the throne to marry, you will remember, an American). When Americans think royalty, they still think Diana. Her own marriage in 1981, its tumultuous aftermath and then her death, transfixed them. Now the first-born son who looks so like his mother is marrying. Diana was never to be Queen; but in William the future King her destiny is to be fulfilled. On the other side of the Atlantic, this is the real storyline of 29 April.
Now none of the above is to suggest that the US is starting to wonder if it made a mistake in casting off the monarchy 235 years ago. Republicanism is in the country's official genetic code; one reason the constitution bars a president from seeking a third term is precisely to avoid infection by the royal virus. Americans like their presidents accessible, the sort of person you could have a beer with. They could not stand an office wreathed in pomp and circumstance, sealed off from the general populace, could they? The truth is, in many respects, that's what they've got.
Like it or not, a president is in part a king. He is the commander-in-chief. His motorcade is like an armoured regiment on the move, and the retinue that accompanies him on his foreign travels could be the mediaeval court during a royal progress. Unlike British royals, US presidents don't have to cope with phone hackers (secret Oval Office taping systems and unsuspected live microphones tend to be their nemesis). Even so, the gossip columns pick over the minutiae of a White House state dinner far more avidly than the British press would ever report on a Buckingham Palace banquet. Michelle Obama's wardrobe is accorded Diana-like scrutiny, the Queen's corgis are anonymous mutts comparedwith a US presidential pet. Buckingham Palace is an oasis of privacy compared with the goldfish bowl in which an American president lives.
Of course, he can't go too far: Richard Nixon, ever clumsy, made a fool of himself when he tried to introduce White House ceremonial guards in fancy tunics and toy soldier hats. But a president ignores the regal component of his office at his peril. Ronald Reagan understood that truth instinctively – indeed, by casting himself as disengaged king, he probably saved himself from impeachment in the Iran-Contra scandal. His predecessor Jimmy Carter went to the opposite extreme, presenting himself as a no-frills, no- formality Everyman, which may be one explanation why Americans never warmed to him.
And might not our fusty inherited monarchy, for all its scandals and silliness, these days have one other appeal? The Royal family may be dysfunctional on occasion, but at least its failings have purely entertainment value. And is it really more dysfunctional than America's elected governments, which actually have to run the country? In an age when US politics is so polarised that politicians can't even agree on where President Obama was born, let alone on action to tackle the country's fundamental problems, the notion of an unelected head of state, perched above the fray, is almost refreshing. Whatever else, you can't play party politics with the Wills-Kate union.
So the US, like Britain, plans to sit back and enjoy the show. But one final question remains: why the fascination with our royal wedding and not other people's? Ten months ago, the heir to the Swedish throne married a commoner. The roles were reversed; this time crown princess Victoria was marrying a man called Daniel Westling, her former fitness instructor. The couple were young and attractive, and royals from Europe and beyond attended the occasion in droves. The wedding procession was four miles long with a spectacular segment by royal barge across Stockholm's inner harbour. Yet Americans saw, heard and read next to nothing about it.
But then again, the US was never a colony of Sweden. The two countries do not share a language, nor did they fight against each other in the early 19th century, then alongside each other in most of the 20th and 21st century's great wars. Those are the links between America and Britain that underpin the transatlantic fascination with the Windsor/Middleton nuptials, beyond the simple enjoyment of a rattling good show. They explain in part why the ladies will be whooping it up in North Carolina next weekend. Indeed put these ties together – and you've got, well, a special relationship.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/rupert-cornwell/the-regal-republic-why-are-americans-obsessed-with-the-royal-family-2274357.html
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Canada: Republican presidential field lacking
The Montreal Gazette
U.S. Republicans fret as candidates cool to jump into the pool
By Sheldon Alberts, Postmedia News Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON - By almost every measure Republicans traditionally use to size up presidential candidates, Willard Mitt Romney makes the grade.
Former big-state governor, check. Impeccable political pedigree, check.
Successful businessman, check. Chiselled jaw. Perfect hair. Check. Check.
But something funny is happening to the GOP as its White House hopefuls line up at the starting line for the 2012 presidential contest - few of the old rules for picking a nominee seem to apply.
That was never more evident than this past week when Romney - the former Massachusetts governor and a 2008 Republican runner-up - finally took steps to enter the 2012 race.
Romney's announcement, via Twitter and online video, that he'd formed a presidential exploratory committee was a blink-and-you-missed-it affair.
The campaign rollout came late on a Tuesday afternoon, with little advance notice, and barely registered on the evening network newscasts.
Romney's low-key announcement was part of a deliberate strategy to play the tortoise in what he expects will a long and expensive trek toward the party's 2012 nominating convention in Tampa, Florida.
But it also reflects the sober reality that Romney, who many believed would be the natural front-runner in 2012, is just another face in a GOP field that so far failed to generate much in the way of excitement among Republican voters, let alone the broader electorate.
Indeed, the slow-starting Republican race is shaping up as one nobody really seems ready to run, let alone win.
With less than 10 months before the Iowa caucuses, only Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty have launched full-fledged exploratory committees.
Three others - former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul - have announced they are setting up ``testing the waters'' accounts that allow them to raise money but don't require Federal Election Commission filings.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who last year seemed poised to run, has taken few organizational steps toward launching her campaign.
The hesitation among GOP hopefuls is already taking a toll on the campaign calendar. A planned May 2 presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Library was cancelled for lack of candidate interest.
The first debate of the 2012 season will now be held May 5 in Greenville, South Carolina.
Organizers announced last week that five would-be candidates - Pawlenty, Gingrich, Paul, Santorum and former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer - had signalled their participation. But Gingrich officials have since indicated the former Speaker was a likely no-show because he will not have formally entered the race by that date.
In typical years, it would unthinkable for a serious candidate to skip an early debate in South Carolina, which holds the ``first in the South'' presidential primaries. South Carolina primary wins by George W. Bush in 2000 and John McCain in 2008 propelled them to the GOP nomination.
``It's very important to get established in South Carolina,'' David Wilkins, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada and former Speaker of the state legislature, told Postmedia News.
Would-be Republican candidates should take Wilkins' words to heart. In 2000, he engineered Bush's South Carolina victory, a win that stopped McCain's first presidential campaign in its tracks.
``I don't want to make a general statement that it's a mistake not to come here, but if you want to run well in the South, then you've got to do well in South Carolina,'' he says. ``You need to get to the state, to get known, and get organized.''
Wilkins isn't ready to hit the panic button yet on the 2012 field and says there's ``plenty of time'' for candidates to get established.
``I'm sure people are still assessing their ability to raise money,'' he said. ``I think within the next 30 days, you will see more and more candidates come out and all of it starting to jell a bit more.''
The tepid start to the 2012 campaign is producing alarm among other Republican Party officials and members of Congress.
``We think we can beat the president, but we have to have somebody to beat him with,'' Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, told Politico.
While unseating an incumbent president is a historically difficult feat in American politics, many GOP officials say President Barack Obama's vulnerability is apparent in approval ratings stuck at about 50 per cent.
The problem, according to some Republicans, is that none of the prospective candidates possess the ``wow factor'' needed to defeat Obama, one of the strongest campaigners in history.
More worrisome to party officials is that Obama is getting a big head-start on the road to November 2012.
While the Republican candidates hesitate, Obama last week formally announced his re-election bid and embarked on fundraising efforts expected to produce a campaign war chest nearing $1 billion.
Some political analysts argue the problem rests not so much with the candidates, than the Republican Party. The anti-tax, anti-establishment Tea Party movement has shifted the base of the party further to the right, making it more difficult for traditional - or politically moderate - candidates like Romney and Pawlenty to gain traction.
The Tea Party's rise has fuelled the candidacies of more unconventional candidates including Paul, a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, and third-term Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has accused Obama of having ``anti-American'' views.
``The Republican Party is still trying to define its soul again after the exuberance of (last) November and the rise of the Tea Party. I don't think that dust has quite settled yet,'' Stephen Schneck, a political scientist at Catholic University of America, said in an interview.
``Until it does, it is going to be hard to see which of the Republican candidates will catch fire.''
Nowhere has the unsettled nature of the Republican race been more apparent than in the sudden emergence of Donald Trump at the top of GOP polls.
A CNN/Opinion Research survey released this week showed Trump tied for first in the Republican race with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, at 19 per cent support,
Romney and Gingrich registered 11 per cent support, while Palin had 12 per cent.
Trump's rise has stirred anxiety within the GOP establishment, not least because his jump in popularity has coincided with a well-publicized campaign questioning whether Obama was born in the United States.
Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, suggested Trump's popularity was an aberration due to it being ``very early on'' in the political season.
``I don't think he is really serious,'' Cantor told CNN, somewhat hopefully, ``when we see a campaign launched on the `birther' issue.''
http://www.canada.com/Republicans+fret+candidates+cool+jump+into+pool/4627430/story.html#ixzz1KSUjLyKi
U.S. Republicans fret as candidates cool to jump into the pool
By Sheldon Alberts, Postmedia News Washington Correspondent
WASHINGTON - By almost every measure Republicans traditionally use to size up presidential candidates, Willard Mitt Romney makes the grade.
Former big-state governor, check. Impeccable political pedigree, check.
Successful businessman, check. Chiselled jaw. Perfect hair. Check. Check.
But something funny is happening to the GOP as its White House hopefuls line up at the starting line for the 2012 presidential contest - few of the old rules for picking a nominee seem to apply.
That was never more evident than this past week when Romney - the former Massachusetts governor and a 2008 Republican runner-up - finally took steps to enter the 2012 race.
Romney's announcement, via Twitter and online video, that he'd formed a presidential exploratory committee was a blink-and-you-missed-it affair.
The campaign rollout came late on a Tuesday afternoon, with little advance notice, and barely registered on the evening network newscasts.
Romney's low-key announcement was part of a deliberate strategy to play the tortoise in what he expects will a long and expensive trek toward the party's 2012 nominating convention in Tampa, Florida.
But it also reflects the sober reality that Romney, who many believed would be the natural front-runner in 2012, is just another face in a GOP field that so far failed to generate much in the way of excitement among Republican voters, let alone the broader electorate.
Indeed, the slow-starting Republican race is shaping up as one nobody really seems ready to run, let alone win.
With less than 10 months before the Iowa caucuses, only Romney and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty have launched full-fledged exploratory committees.
Three others - former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Congressman Ron Paul - have announced they are setting up ``testing the waters'' accounts that allow them to raise money but don't require Federal Election Commission filings.
Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who last year seemed poised to run, has taken few organizational steps toward launching her campaign.
The hesitation among GOP hopefuls is already taking a toll on the campaign calendar. A planned May 2 presidential debate at the Ronald Reagan Library was cancelled for lack of candidate interest.
The first debate of the 2012 season will now be held May 5 in Greenville, South Carolina.
Organizers announced last week that five would-be candidates - Pawlenty, Gingrich, Paul, Santorum and former Louisiana governor Buddy Roemer - had signalled their participation. But Gingrich officials have since indicated the former Speaker was a likely no-show because he will not have formally entered the race by that date.
In typical years, it would unthinkable for a serious candidate to skip an early debate in South Carolina, which holds the ``first in the South'' presidential primaries. South Carolina primary wins by George W. Bush in 2000 and John McCain in 2008 propelled them to the GOP nomination.
``It's very important to get established in South Carolina,'' David Wilkins, the former U.S. ambassador to Canada and former Speaker of the state legislature, told Postmedia News.
Would-be Republican candidates should take Wilkins' words to heart. In 2000, he engineered Bush's South Carolina victory, a win that stopped McCain's first presidential campaign in its tracks.
``I don't want to make a general statement that it's a mistake not to come here, but if you want to run well in the South, then you've got to do well in South Carolina,'' he says. ``You need to get to the state, to get known, and get organized.''
Wilkins isn't ready to hit the panic button yet on the 2012 field and says there's ``plenty of time'' for candidates to get established.
``I'm sure people are still assessing their ability to raise money,'' he said. ``I think within the next 30 days, you will see more and more candidates come out and all of it starting to jell a bit more.''
The tepid start to the 2012 campaign is producing alarm among other Republican Party officials and members of Congress.
``We think we can beat the president, but we have to have somebody to beat him with,'' Shelley Moore Capito, a West Virginia Republican, told Politico.
While unseating an incumbent president is a historically difficult feat in American politics, many GOP officials say President Barack Obama's vulnerability is apparent in approval ratings stuck at about 50 per cent.
The problem, according to some Republicans, is that none of the prospective candidates possess the ``wow factor'' needed to defeat Obama, one of the strongest campaigners in history.
More worrisome to party officials is that Obama is getting a big head-start on the road to November 2012.
While the Republican candidates hesitate, Obama last week formally announced his re-election bid and embarked on fundraising efforts expected to produce a campaign war chest nearing $1 billion.
Some political analysts argue the problem rests not so much with the candidates, than the Republican Party. The anti-tax, anti-establishment Tea Party movement has shifted the base of the party further to the right, making it more difficult for traditional - or politically moderate - candidates like Romney and Pawlenty to gain traction.
The Tea Party's rise has fuelled the candidacies of more unconventional candidates including Paul, a dyed-in-the-wool libertarian, and third-term Minnesota congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who has accused Obama of having ``anti-American'' views.
``The Republican Party is still trying to define its soul again after the exuberance of (last) November and the rise of the Tea Party. I don't think that dust has quite settled yet,'' Stephen Schneck, a political scientist at Catholic University of America, said in an interview.
``Until it does, it is going to be hard to see which of the Republican candidates will catch fire.''
Nowhere has the unsettled nature of the Republican race been more apparent than in the sudden emergence of Donald Trump at the top of GOP polls.
A CNN/Opinion Research survey released this week showed Trump tied for first in the Republican race with former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, at 19 per cent support,
Romney and Gingrich registered 11 per cent support, while Palin had 12 per cent.
Trump's rise has stirred anxiety within the GOP establishment, not least because his jump in popularity has coincided with a well-publicized campaign questioning whether Obama was born in the United States.
Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, suggested Trump's popularity was an aberration due to it being ``very early on'' in the political season.
``I don't think he is really serious,'' Cantor told CNN, somewhat hopefully, ``when we see a campaign launched on the `birther' issue.''
http://www.canada.com/Republicans+fret+candidates+cool+jump+into+pool/4627430/story.html#ixzz1KSUjLyKi
Canada: Trump a sympton of a broken system
Montreal Gazette
For now, Donald Trump is a symptom
By Chuck Raasch, USA Today
WASHINGTON — We just passed the 76th anniversary of Black Sunday, the April 14, 1935, dust storms that produced monstrous curtains of dirt from Texas through the Dakotas and blanketed East Coast cities in a gritty film. It was one of the most memorable days of the Great Depression, and it led to conservation policies that literally remade the Great Plains landscape.
We had a similar date of infamy on April 18, although you may not have noticed. Standard and Poor’s pessimistic assessment of the nation’s ability to pay off its $14 trillion debt sent the stock market into a temporary tailspin, and the Obama White House into damage control.
The warning came 31 months after the global financial meltdown of 2008. How it goes down in history is up to a political system that has not responded adequately enough to allay anyone’s fears of a bad outcome. Americans just witnessed an ugly legislative process that led to a tardy 2011 budget agreement that, in relation to the problem, was tantamount to drawing a few buckets of water out of a flooding river.
The April 18 warning was a vote of no confidence in the American political system. Other recent developments indicate a growing unease over American leadership in general.
President Barack Obama’s job approval has slipped below the percentage of those disapproving of his performance. Yet the same Washington Post poll also concluded that no one in the Republicans’ assembling 2012 presidential field appears capable of beating him. If held today, it would be a hold-your-nose election for many Americans.
This is why Donald Trump — as arrogant, crude and confrontational as he can be — is the potential candidate everyone is talking about. Although it’s not always for the right reasons if you are in Trump’s corner. His questions about whether Obama was born in the United States may get traction among fringe Obama haters. But talking about it counters why Trump says the country needs him, which is that he is a spare-me-the-sideshows deal-maker of unrivaled business sense at a time when a broke America needs just that.
Right now, Trump is a symptom more than a solution. His strong showing in Republican primary polls is a byproduct of a perception by many Americans that we have a leadership vacuum and a pandering political class incapable of solving America’s problems. Trump’s bluntness and deal-making braggadocio may get panned in the media, but that reaction will only add to his anti-Washington credentials among those already distrustful of anything related to the city.
"Trump appeals to the strivers," said Roger Stone, a veteran political consultant who advised him when Trump was considering a run for president in 2000, and who has talked with Trump recently. "Trump lives as they would live if they were rich. Trump’s over-the-top lifestyle of the biggest and the best appeals to these voters. The Ivy League-educated? Not so much. Old money? Forget it. Trump appeals to the Perot and Buchanan voters suspicious of both parties. The tea party is a natural launching pad for Trump."
Trump’s Atlantic City Casino might give good odds that he would wilt in the harsh light of presidential campaigns. His positions on everything from universal health care to abortion have had as many twists and turns as an episode of "Celebrity Apprentice." But he also is railing against a political system that many Americans believe is broken beyond repair, with the perceived credibility of a successful businessman (albeit one whose casino company declared bankruptcy several times).
Since the November election, the door has been uniquely open for bold action and brawny leadership on the debt and deficit. Obama might have summoned the "fierce urgency of now" he talked about in his 2008 presidential campaign.
Last November, there was an electoral mandate to get control of the deficit and a bipartisan deficit-reduction blueprint in its final draft. Obama was still relatively popular even if his party had taken an electoral licking. A commission of leading Democrats and Republicans appointed by Obama recommended a combination of cuts and tax increases, parts of which Obama put in his do-over 2012 budget proposal released earlier in April.
But for reasons that had more to do with his 2012 election campaign than solving the problem, Obama let Republicans go first, and their plan of deeper cuts and no tax increases unleashed the predictable "they’re killing granny" attacks from Obama’s left. And so Congress has retreated back to the familiar partisanship and pettiness that has brought us to this moment.
You have to give Obama credit for setting himself up as the reasonable moderate between the intransigent "no new taxes" right and the unyielding "don’t touch Medicare" left. It’s a perfect re-election triangle for him. But it is based on a premise that the intransigents will dig in, and the debt problem will again get kicked down the road.
Two years ago, 73 percent of Americans told Gallup they thought Obama was a strong and decisive leader. That fell to 60 percent last May, and to 52 percent in a survey taken in late March. That’s not a good trend — for Obama, but especially for the country.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/TRUMP+SYMPTOM/4667091/story.html
For now, Donald Trump is a symptom
By Chuck Raasch, USA Today
WASHINGTON — We just passed the 76th anniversary of Black Sunday, the April 14, 1935, dust storms that produced monstrous curtains of dirt from Texas through the Dakotas and blanketed East Coast cities in a gritty film. It was one of the most memorable days of the Great Depression, and it led to conservation policies that literally remade the Great Plains landscape.
We had a similar date of infamy on April 18, although you may not have noticed. Standard and Poor’s pessimistic assessment of the nation’s ability to pay off its $14 trillion debt sent the stock market into a temporary tailspin, and the Obama White House into damage control.
The warning came 31 months after the global financial meltdown of 2008. How it goes down in history is up to a political system that has not responded adequately enough to allay anyone’s fears of a bad outcome. Americans just witnessed an ugly legislative process that led to a tardy 2011 budget agreement that, in relation to the problem, was tantamount to drawing a few buckets of water out of a flooding river.
The April 18 warning was a vote of no confidence in the American political system. Other recent developments indicate a growing unease over American leadership in general.
President Barack Obama’s job approval has slipped below the percentage of those disapproving of his performance. Yet the same Washington Post poll also concluded that no one in the Republicans’ assembling 2012 presidential field appears capable of beating him. If held today, it would be a hold-your-nose election for many Americans.
This is why Donald Trump — as arrogant, crude and confrontational as he can be — is the potential candidate everyone is talking about. Although it’s not always for the right reasons if you are in Trump’s corner. His questions about whether Obama was born in the United States may get traction among fringe Obama haters. But talking about it counters why Trump says the country needs him, which is that he is a spare-me-the-sideshows deal-maker of unrivaled business sense at a time when a broke America needs just that.
Right now, Trump is a symptom more than a solution. His strong showing in Republican primary polls is a byproduct of a perception by many Americans that we have a leadership vacuum and a pandering political class incapable of solving America’s problems. Trump’s bluntness and deal-making braggadocio may get panned in the media, but that reaction will only add to his anti-Washington credentials among those already distrustful of anything related to the city.
"Trump appeals to the strivers," said Roger Stone, a veteran political consultant who advised him when Trump was considering a run for president in 2000, and who has talked with Trump recently. "Trump lives as they would live if they were rich. Trump’s over-the-top lifestyle of the biggest and the best appeals to these voters. The Ivy League-educated? Not so much. Old money? Forget it. Trump appeals to the Perot and Buchanan voters suspicious of both parties. The tea party is a natural launching pad for Trump."
Trump’s Atlantic City Casino might give good odds that he would wilt in the harsh light of presidential campaigns. His positions on everything from universal health care to abortion have had as many twists and turns as an episode of "Celebrity Apprentice." But he also is railing against a political system that many Americans believe is broken beyond repair, with the perceived credibility of a successful businessman (albeit one whose casino company declared bankruptcy several times).
Since the November election, the door has been uniquely open for bold action and brawny leadership on the debt and deficit. Obama might have summoned the "fierce urgency of now" he talked about in his 2008 presidential campaign.
Last November, there was an electoral mandate to get control of the deficit and a bipartisan deficit-reduction blueprint in its final draft. Obama was still relatively popular even if his party had taken an electoral licking. A commission of leading Democrats and Republicans appointed by Obama recommended a combination of cuts and tax increases, parts of which Obama put in his do-over 2012 budget proposal released earlier in April.
But for reasons that had more to do with his 2012 election campaign than solving the problem, Obama let Republicans go first, and their plan of deeper cuts and no tax increases unleashed the predictable "they’re killing granny" attacks from Obama’s left. And so Congress has retreated back to the familiar partisanship and pettiness that has brought us to this moment.
You have to give Obama credit for setting himself up as the reasonable moderate between the intransigent "no new taxes" right and the unyielding "don’t touch Medicare" left. It’s a perfect re-election triangle for him. But it is based on a premise that the intransigents will dig in, and the debt problem will again get kicked down the road.
Two years ago, 73 percent of Americans told Gallup they thought Obama was a strong and decisive leader. That fell to 60 percent last May, and to 52 percent in a survey taken in late March. That’s not a good trend — for Obama, but especially for the country.
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/TRUMP+SYMPTOM/4667091/story.html
China: US seeks African Union help in Libya
Xinhua
Clinton seeks AU help on Libya
WASHINGTON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that Africa is of "great significance" to the Obama administration and the U.S. seeks African Union's assistance on the issue of Libya.
Clinton made the remarks at the press conference ahead of the meeting with visiting African Union (AU) Chairman Jean Ping.
She said the U.S. has "every intention" to broaden and deepen relationship "not only bilaterally with" countries but also with the AU.
"In addition, we seek the African Union's assistance in arriving at a political solution in Libya," Clinton added.
Ping is in Washington to attend the second annual U.S.-AU high- level dialogue.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-04/22/c_13840223.htm
Clinton seeks AU help on Libya
WASHINGTON, April 21 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. State Secretary Hillary Clinton said on Thursday that Africa is of "great significance" to the Obama administration and the U.S. seeks African Union's assistance on the issue of Libya.
Clinton made the remarks at the press conference ahead of the meeting with visiting African Union (AU) Chairman Jean Ping.
She said the U.S. has "every intention" to broaden and deepen relationship "not only bilaterally with" countries but also with the AU.
"In addition, we seek the African Union's assistance in arriving at a political solution in Libya," Clinton added.
Ping is in Washington to attend the second annual U.S.-AU high- level dialogue.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-04/22/c_13840223.htm
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