America’s Riveting Democracy: Why is the world addicted to our campaign?

NYT op-ed: America’s Riveting Democracy
By ROGER COHEN
Published: January 31, 2008

An Italian member of the European Parliament is not the first person you expect to meet in Charleston, South Carolina, but there was Monica Frassoni last week following the twists and turns of a remarkable U.S. election. Italians are not the only people feeling they deserve a vote on Nov. 4. Nor is Frassoni isolated in her interest. German and French TV crews scurried about. A Brazilian journalist behind me was screaming into a microphone as Barack Obama gave his victory speech after last Saturday’s primary....

One reason, of course, is that the convening of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist party or the selection of a European Commission president, big events in ascendant China and coalescing Europe, are hardly ready for prime time. A gaggle of guys in suits make soporific footage....

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...here’s why the world is addicted to this campaign with nine months still to go.

The first reason is the thirst for the end of the Bush era. His prosaic valedictory State of the Union speech this week reminded everyone of this man’s tone-deaf incapacity to touch people. It’s grotesque for him to pose now as a fiscal conservative, an environmentalist and a peacemaker. He’s yesterday’s story.

The second is Obamania, now in overdrive with the Kennedy endorsement. Camelot is the world’s imagined America, a place of gallantry and idealism. And here comes Barack Obama, with his beautiful wife Michelle, to summon all that America’s beckoning shore once symbolized of rags-to-riches opportunity and unlikely reconciliation across history’s wounds. Germany is agog; it’s not alone.

The third is the sheer drama of the contest, whose current focus is the battle between Obama and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, but whose rich array of candidates is worthy of central casting.

The fourth, as Frassoni noted, is that the Bush Administration has been a disquieting reminder of how much the occupant of the White House matters....

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/31/opinion/31Cohen.html?hp

controlled by a few families. They've shown every willingness to ensure the increase of their wealth by using the power of the US military to destroy anyone whose destruction they think might turn a profit.

Unlike us, the rest of the world sees the remaining crop of corporate neofascists for what they are and they are scared to death.

Not the candidates... not the drama... what a frickin moran. :eyes:

"The fourth, as Frassoni noted, is that the Bush Administration has been a disquieting reminder of how much the occupant of the White House matters...."

that's just not the case.

It's been this way for decades.

Maybe they didn't have journalists here covering it... but they followed the news.

I'm a little more sore with the M$M than usual just now... so I'm liable to be trashing them at each and every opportunity.

:evilgrin:

And sure, everyone knows it's as crooked, fixed, and "unreal" as Survivor or any of that other crap. But that doesn't matter...it's ENTERTAINING.

the rest of the world hopes it doesn't have to stop us.