Australia: US Politics As Usual

It has been a mixed bag from Australian bloggers lately. Paris Hilton has brought some to life but after our drawn-out Federal election last year, I suspect many are tired of the minutiae of campaigning.

Tigtog of Hoyden About Town in her usual irreverent style got stuck into John McCain for suggesting his wife as a Sturgis beauty contestant but was depressed by the Obama camp’s response to his Paris/Britney ad:

Which unfortunately raises the crucial question: why can a Hollywood starlet do this so effectively, to both defend her reputation and advance her career, yet the Obama team hasn’t managed to do so when he wants to persuade people to vote for him as President? It’s the ineffectual response narrative of Gore and Kerry all over again. Damn it Team Obama, do better, because otherwise the election gets handed to McCain on a silver platter.

How more vile (and thick (and don’t forget vile)) can McCain possibly be? 6 August 2008

Apparently a hoyden is a “woman of saucy, boisterous or carefree behavior”.

On a more sobering note, Tim Dunlop at Blogocracy delved into the murky depths of global terrorism:

One of the many awful legacies of the Bush Administration will be the way they aggravated rather than helped solve the very real threat of international terrorism. By failing to heed warnings before the attacks of 911 and then responding in almost exactly the wrong way after those attacks, they have turned—by action and rhetoric—a big problem into something worse than it needed to be.

Looking at a Rand Corporation Report on global terrorism, Tim bemoaned the gap between words and action:

People who are serious about doing something about terrorism rather than just using it as an excuse to let us all know how tough they are should know that one of the best things we-the-people can do to fight this scourge (global terrorism of the al Qaeda variety) is to kick out of office the likes of George Bush and John McCain and elect some adults to run the show. Doesn’t matter what country you are in: turn your back on the macho rhetoric of those whose approach has failed us to date and look for people who are willing to do the long hard yards of actually solving the problem in a lasting way.

Let the adults speak on terrorism 1 August 2008

Your Democracy tackled a similar topic, the great anthrax scare, with a Daryl Cagle cartoon and an expose of George W. Bush’s attempts to blame Al-Qaeda.

fark, fark

fark, fark …. 5 August 2008

Duckpond is already concerned that the Olympics will detract from a proper debate about economics issues and the Republican administration’s woeful record:

I am flummoxed. What is going on in “the land of the free”? The Beijing Olympic Games will be a great distraction, or not, as Americans win a truckload of medals, but who could care less? Short answer: the Chinese. There is supposed to be an election, and elections are supposed to feature debates about the economy, especially when after eight years of a feckless Republican Administration the US economy is showing some disturbing signs that, I imagine, will invariably have a deleterious impact on the Global Economy. Nothing. Silence.
IT’S THE ECONOMY? 5 August 2008

With 90 days to go, let's hope that policies get as much coverage as personalities and issues outdo innuendo.

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