Tallied Ho

The British election is settled with a coalition government that just put 43-year old Tory Party reformer David Cameron at 10 Downing Street, and debate star Nick Clegg of the Liberal-Democrats as his governing partner:

Following tradition, Queen Elizabeth II appointed Cameron at Buckingham Palace – a stately denouement to a behind-the-scenes dogfight between Cameron and Brown for the cooperation of Britain's third-place party, after an election that left no party with a majority.

Within minutes, the 43-year-old Cameron was installed at No. 10 Downing Street, becoming the youngest prime minister in almost 200 years, since Lord Liverpool took office at age 42.

An announcement followed that Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg would become deputy prime minister – a rarely awarded and prestigious post – after days of hard bargaining with his former political rivals. Four other Liberal Democrats also received Cabinet posts.

While they will be making drastic spending cuts as their way to get Britain through its current economic crisis, they have to horse trade with their new partners, and I think it's a good thing, much better than the Lib-Dems joining with Gordon Brown's deadweight on his Labour Party. Both parties share the pain and any gain, and unlike with the new American Radical Right that's taking over the Republican Party, they haven't lined up the positions as absolutely, religiously or violently.

I say give Cameron a chance. He has some Obamaesque qualities, I'm assuming he listened to Clegg and must have that ability to hear other people and make sense of it to get things done. I'm betting he and Obama will get along famously and make some good stuff happen. His wife looks like she's ready for the Michelle Obama/Carla Bruni 1st Ladies Club.

The wags are sure that the coalition with crumble within a year and new elections will be held, but I'm not so sure about that. Brown was the old guy, Cameron-to-Clegg seems like the future, although some young charismatic mover may be poised to take leadership at Labour.

Here's to democracy, in all its inefficient forms. And in that spirit of idealism and optimism, here's to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) in what may be his biggest career highlight to date, a 96-0 vote to approve his landmark "Audit the Fed" amendment.

Tally Oh!

Interesting developments over in England where the governing Labour Party, damaged by former Prime Minister Tony Blair's acquiescence to George W. Bush's duplicitiously conceived and clumsily executed Iraq War, now finds itself potentially dropping to third place in the upcoming election behind the anti-charismatic PM Gordon Brown.

While Tory leader David Cameron has been preparing for Downing Street by rebuilding his party's image in a kinder, gentler fashion (he's maybe slightly to the right of Obama) and poised to win, both Cameron and Brown have been upstaged in Britain's first televised Prime Minister election debates by Nick Clegg, telegenic leader of the smaller Liberal-Democratic Party. Clegg has been compared to Obama in that he's both something of a breathe of fresh air as well as offering a third way between or besides the other two parties.

The polls currently have the Conservatives in the lead, followed by the Liberal Dems and Labour trailing. But what just happened today could be the deathblow to Labour hopes of retaining control of even a coalition government, as Gordon Brown committed one the all-time worst campaign gaffes in that country. Brown was doing some rare campaigning amongst the electorate, had a conversation with an older woman last name Duffy, and was caught on mic disparaging her as a bigot as he got into his car (transcript via Andrew Sullivan's blog):

Duffy: We had it drummed in when I was a child with mine … it was education, health service and looking after the people who are vulnerable. But there's too many people now who are vulnerable but they can claim and people who are vulnerable can't get claim, can't get it.

Brown: But they shouldn't be doing that, there is no life on the dole for people any more. If you are unemployed you've got to go back to work. It's six months.

Duffy: You can't say anything about the immigrants because you're saying that you're … but all these eastern European what are coming in, where are they flocking from?

Later, as he was leaving

Brown: Very good to meet you, and you're wearing the right colour today. Ha, ha, ha: How many grandchildren do you have?

Duffy: Two. They've just got back from Australia where they got stuck for 10 days. They couldn't get back with this ash crisis.

Brown: We've been trying to get people back quickly. Are they going to university. Is that the plan?

Duffy: I hope so. They're only 12 and 10.

Brown: Are they're doing well at school? [pats Duffy on the back] A good family, good to see you. It's very nice to see you.

In the car

Brown: That was a disaster. Well I just ... should never have put me in that woman. Whose idea was that?

And since they're doing American-style debates, why not American-style YouTube gaffe documentation:



Welcome to our world, Gordon Brown.

Pity Party

Several articles over this long weekend making self-pity the dominant theme of the Bush Administration's final turn. Just like with failed President Richard Nixon.

Primary amongst these tales are advance excerpts/word from Robert Draper's upcoming book on Mister Bush, for which he received unprecedented access to our supposed Chief Executive. Bush decries self-pity in a President, all the while doth protesting too much:

“Self-pity is the worst thing that can happen to a presidency,” Mr. Bush told Mr. Draper, by way of saying he sought to avoid it. “This is a job where you can have a lot of self-pity.”

In the same interview, Mr. Bush seemed to indicate that he had his down moments at home, saying of his wife, Laura, “Back to the self-pity point — she reminds me that I decided to do this.”

Bush's passive self-pity is matched only by his alarming, even horrifying passiveness over the key decision in the Iraq debacle:

Mr. Bush acknowledged one major failing of the early occupation of Iraq when he said of disbanding the Saddam Hussein-era military, “The policy was to keep the army intact; didn’t happen.”

But when Mr. Draper pointed out that Mr. Bush’s former Iraq administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, had gone ahead and forced the army’s dissolution and then asked Mr. Bush how he reacted to that, Mr. Bush said, “Yeah, I can’t remember, I’m sure I said, ‘This is the policy, what happened?’ ” But, he added, “Again, Hadley’s got notes on all of this stuff,” referring to Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser.

Should play nicely in his "legacy."

Meanwhile Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is having a pity party of her own, participating in an unprecedented number of bios while still in office, desperate to shape the post-Admin impression of her performance (this from the former National Security Advisor who failed us by failing to prevent the forewarned 9/11 attacks on her watch):

Ms. Rice is rarely, if ever, self-reflective. But in an interview with The New York Times this month, she acknowledged, ever so obliquely, that her first four years working for the Bush administration were not her best.

“I don’t know; if that’s the assessment, you know, I’ll accept people’s assessment,” she said, her demeanor resigned. “The national security adviser is a great job, because you’re very close to the president; you’re working with him, but it’s also a very difficult job because everything is by remote control. You do not own any of the assets...”

...In fact, her friends say that she rarely questions whether she is right or wrong, instead choosing to believe in a particular truth with absolute certainty until she doesn’t believe it anymore, at which point she moves on. “Now you’ve got me trying to psycho-analyze myself,” she complained...

“...I told Steve Hadley once, I frankly prefer being coordinated than coordinating,” she said, referring to the current national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley.

Hadley again. What would these "leaders" do without him? Whine alone?

There's no end in sight to the self-pity, which will eventually morph into the traditional (and well-documented) rightwing "stabbed in the back" meme. Now that the British, with Tony Blair safely escorted from power, are doing exactly what the American public wants us to do, i.e. leaving, you've got plenty of Bush fury -- those backstabs bleed self pity every time:

Downing Street said the withdrawal from Basra Palace was part of the continuing process of handover to Iraqi forces.

But the move produced an angry reaction in Washington. Bush administration officials were furious that the operation was launched at a time when the president is begging for more time for his 'surge' strategy to turn the tide of the war.

Although the Prime Minister refuses to say when he will order UK troops home, observers believe the stage is set for a fullscale pull-out - and a serious rift in the special relationship with the U.S.

Who can blame the Brits -- even our own troops know our continued expenditures of blood and treasury in Iraq is futile at best.

But maybe the entire GOP establishment's childlike rage at the mess they've made of their Party and our country can best be summarized by Republican strategist Mary Matalin's toddler-tantrum act today on Meet the Press:

On this morning’s Meet The Press, Senior Cheney apologist and right wing sniper, Mary Matalin, threw a little hissy fit at Bob Shrum on the issue of Iraq and the upcoming presidential election. As Shrum continually smacks down her spin, Matalin becomes increasingly perturbed and at the end of the segment as Mike Murphy was getting in some right wing spin of his own, she chucks her pen across the table in front of him, noticeably drawing his attention and making a loud noise as it bounced across the table and onto the floor.

Hey, as one who finds being right a better feeling than, well, let's not go there, I'm sympathetic. It sucks to be wrong.

About everything.