Segacs's World I Know

Archive for the ‘USA’ Category

It’s official: Barack Obama was sworn in today to the office of the President of the United States.

I’m normally a cynic, but even I’m finding it difficult not to be a little idealistic today. Obama has a real gift for oratory and for inspiration, and you could feel the change in the air watching the whole thing.

Sure, expectations for Obama are so high that he has nowhere to go but down. And sure, the US and indeed the world are in messes from which it’s going to take an awfully long time to climb out from.

But the much-maligned, misunderestimated Dubya was perhaps the most hated, divisive president of modern times. Obama’s inauguration today was met with a worldwide sigh of relief, and of optimism for things to come.

One day till election day, and as they say, it ain’t over till the fat lady sings:

That’s Sarah Palin, laughing as she digs her own grave, getting prank called by CKOI’s Les Justiciers Masqués. It’s kind of like watching a car wreck; equal parts entertaining and horrifying.

When Obama wins on Tuesday, as is expected, Montreal will have played its part.

I’ll be traveling during the election, so there won’t be any commentary on the results on this blog for a couple of weeks. That said, to all Americans out there, make sure to exercise your civic duty and vote!

Start getting used to hearing that. With a fair lead in the polls and only a week until election day, an Obama win is looking like the most likely scenario at this point. Of course, anything can happen, and if too many Democrats get complacent and stay home next Tuesday, McCain might pull off some surprising victories. But the smart money’s on Obama at this point. And, after eight years of Dubya, it’s hard to argue against a change at this point.

The bad news from this scenario? We won’t be able to make fun of Sarah Palin anymore. Really, Joe Biden isn’t nearly as much fun to mock.

Meanwhile, the assholes are at it again. Why aren’t these investigations kept under wraps to prevent media hype and asshole copycats?

Obama? McCain? The winner is… Joe the Plumber.

Except that it seems he’s not really a plumber. And he’s not really an undecided voter. And he’s not really named Joe. (It’s his middle name). Oh yeah, and for a guy supposedly so concerned about taxes, he hasn’t quite paid his own.

So, lies, cheating and misrepresentation… Hey, sounds like a politician to me. Joe the Plumber for President in 2012? Why not? As Jon Stewart pointed out, he’s already given more interviews than Sarah Palin.

The great debate isn’t between Obama and McCain, or between Biden and Palin, or between Harper, Dion, Layton, Duceppe and May. No, it’s over which debate to watch tonight on TV: the Canadian English PM debate, or the US vice-presidential debate.

The Canadian debate is obviously more relevant to us as Canadians. But for sheer entertainment value alone, the US VP debate is likely to be much more exciting. Start exercising that channel flipping thumb; you may need it.

You’ve heard of Rock the Vote? Now we have a movement targeted at a slightly different demographic.

Sarah Silverman’s The Great Schlep is a movement to encourage Jewish (and other) Americans to travel to Florida to visit their grandparents and encourage them to vote for Barack Obama:

(Warning: NSFW).

Some rare insight from a columnist who I usually disagree with, the Gazette’s Janet Bagnall:

Palin is a true-blue representative of her party. She is a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association and against gay marriage. Her opposition to abortion extends to cases of rape and incest. The women who backed Hillary Clinton’s historic run for the nomination for presidency don’t generally ascribe to those values.

[ . . . ]

Tokenism is an insult, an insidious one whose effects are difficult to erase over time. People will forget that there were other options on the Republican table, capable, long-serving, proven women like Senator Olympia Snowe of Maine and Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas – and that McCain ignored them in favour of doing something headline-grabbing. That effect is already starting to wear off. A CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll this week found, “Three quarters of all voters think McCain chose a female running mate specifically because he thought adding a woman to the Republican ticket would help him win in November.”

And that, in a nutshell, is the problem with the otherwise politically-savvy selection of Palin. Choosing a candidate solely because she’s a woman is no better than systematically denying opportunities to qualified people because they are women.

And while McCain no doubt sees Palin’s stance on issues like abortion and gun control as qualifications, not drawbacks, given the socially conservative voters he’s trying to attract, the fact remains that Palin is much less qualified than the myriad other choices that McCain had – of both genders. She was chosen for her youth (to contrast McCain’s age) and her gender, proving that tokenism is no better than discrimination, after all.

The percentage of Americans who were having issues with Barack Obama’s name to begin with must be having an alliteration field day since he announced Joe Biden as his VP candidate.

It does, however, beg the question of how many Americans won’t vote for McCain just because he sounds like a French freedom fry?

Anyone would be better than Bush, right?

Maybe that low standard is the reason why this year’s field of primary candidates – both Democrat and Republican – seems almost more devoid than ever of anyone worth voting for. It’s not as though I’m naive enough to expect inspiration, integrity or brilliance. I’d just like to see some real choices, for a change. And I certainly don’t envy the choices of our neighbours to the south. Is it just me, or does anyone else feel that Stephen Colbert would have made a better president than any of the “real” candidates currently running? (The Democrats missed a golden opportunity for media coverage on that one…)

Anyway, this is just my time to revive my election pledge from the last election: No election coverage until next September. None, nada, zilch.

That means no daily analysis of the primaries, no odds-making, and no commentary on Hillary Clinton’s hair. (Though if something really out-there happens, I reserve the right to mention it.)

I hope you’ll, once again, find it a better blog because of it.

The Canadian blogosphere is abuzz today about Barack Obama’s gaffe:

U.S. Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama has been trying to burnish his foreign policy credentials. So it didn’t help when he called Canada’s leader a “president” during a debate Tuesday.

Asked what he’d do about the North American trade deal, Obama said it needs changes, so he’d “immediately call the president of Mexico (and) the president of Canada.”

A mistake worthy of… Dubya Bush.

To some people, this might indicate that Obama should spend more time reading up on the governmental systems of the different countries of the world, particularly the US’s neighbours.

To me, it just indicates that he clearly hasn’t heard Joe’s rant.