So, here we are again - the US Election. We know it's an historic occasion because BBC TV News have sent their solid-wood anchorman Huw Edwards over there to sit in that nice studio with a view of the White House and do the links to the various correspondents who are already over there, mostly in Ohio. While he was Stateside, Huw also got his Who Do You Think You Are? moment when he discovered some very distant relations living in a small town somewhere (I think I was nodding off by then). Meanwhile, Radio 4's Today has Jim Naughtie over there, filing those self-consciously lyrical reports that always come over as bad pastiches of Alistair Cooke. Ah well - it will soon (or fairly soon) be over...
This time four years ago, I wrote 'Heaven knows what kind of president Obama will make - I just hope he doesn't turn out to be, beneath the glamour and the eloquence, Jimmy Carter mark 2. I hope he gets off to a better start than Bill Clinton did. And I hope above all that the psychos of Al Qaeda don't decide to test his mettle early on with one of their trademark atrocities. For now, let's look on the bright side,and rejoice that America has yet again proved that, in the final analysis, it's a resoundingly Good Thing.'
Well, America is still, I believe, a resoundingly Good Thing, and Al Qaeda didn't strike early on, but 'Jimmy Carter mark 2' doesn't seem too wide of the mark. By the time of his inauguration, Obama already looked stricken, as if he'd just received really bad news, and it hasn't really got much better. The hugely attractive, charismatic candidate became a strange, emotionally detached and largely ineffectual figure. He doesn't deserve to win - in fact, for his handling of the Libyan embassy siege, he probably deserves to be impeached - but the chances are that the formidable Democrat machine will inch him over the winning line. We'll see, eventually...
Also four years ago, I mentioned that the excellent Laurence Rees's latest TV series, WWII: Behind Closed Doors - a superb account of Stalin's making and breaking of alliances in the course of the war - was coming soon. As it happens, he's got another, equally superb series, The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler, starting next week on BBC2. Don't miss it.
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Heard the Welsh baptist today. It is a measure of the importance to us of this event that our £150 pa for the full package state broadcaster has sent it's most featherbrained employee. I await his elevation to the knighthood for services rendered.
ReplyDeleteVery astute prediction, Nige! I spent the summer in Virginia, one of the so-called 'battleground' states, and was astonished at the difference in effort at the precinct level between the two campaigns. The Obama people simply worked harder. As for Libya, badly handled but hardly impeachable; Hilary Clinton should have been sacked.
ReplyDeleteIt seems I've shown my displeasure with Ms. Clinton by taking away one of her L's.
ReplyDeleteJanet Daley in the Telegraph was complaining about Obama being 'emotionally detached'. But isn't it refreshing? If only more politicians had the reticence of a Stanley Baldwin or a Clement Attlee.
ReplyDeleteAh yes Gareth, but emotional detachment is one thing in a prime minister, quite another in a head of state.
ReplyDeleteElizabeth II is hardly a gusher...
ReplyDelete