The President that Was

According to (Israeli Prime Minister) Olmert’s account of what happened, given in a speech on January 13 in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon, “I said, ‘Get me President Bush on the phone’. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said, ‘I don’t care: I have to talk to him now’. They got him off the podium, brought him to another room, and I spoke to him.”

“I told him, ‘You can’t vote in favour of this resolution.’ He said, ‘Listen, I don’t know about it. I didn’t see it. I’m not familiar with the phrasing’.” So Prime Minister Olmert told President Bush: “I’m familiar with it. You can’t vote in favour.”

Bush did as he was told: “Mr Bush gave an order to Secretary of State Rice and she did not vote in favour of it—a resolution she cooked up, phrased, organised, and manoeuvred for,” said Olmert triumphantly. “She was left pretty shamed, and abstained on a resolution she arranged.” The Security Council passed the resolution 14-0, but the United States, its principal author, abstained.

From a recent column by Gwynne Dyer.

View from another country

The powers that be have invited the entire staff to leave the office and go watch Obama's inauguration speech in a pub across the street. Wow.

I am sort of expecting him to come up to the podium and start laughing evilly as he hits the "Evil Robot Invasion" button.

EDIT: Actually, no I'm expecting a darn fine speech. :) *listens*

Hey!

Biden has been sworn in, and now we're listening to music. Does this mean Biden is VP and Bush is president right now?

EDIT: This is a darn fine speech. Especially the bit about "not giving them up in the name of expedience."

I am 100% sure that the jerk-wing of the right wing is already claiming that, by fluffing a line in his swearing in, he is somehow not really president.

Everyone's favorite invisible flying wizard!

Happy birthday, shadow_maze!

"He's marvellous! Enormous! That fellow could reform us!"

"Now that's what I call... sex appeal!"

No political comment here. Clip from George M. Cohan's first and only movie, and Jimmy Durante's first film. It's about a charismatic medicine show man who runs for president. I just think the tunes are catchy, and the presidential hoopla put me in mind of it, and also in mind of that Busby Berkley movie with the dance number that ends with a salute to FDR.

This is a day of rare widespread public optimism. Revel in it, I say. Sure, optimism doesn't always pan out. But that's not the reason for being optimistic in the first place.