WebMink
Simon Phipps's personal commentary

Political Smog [SocioPolitico]

The untimely death of Senator Paul Wellstone in the USA, compounded into a tragedy by the deaths of his wife and daughter as well as others, would be a source of sadness at any time. But in the current political environment in the USA, it's provoking some to ask whether this was a political assassination. What is fascinating is less that unspeakable question and more the observation made by Ted Rall's Yahoo Op-ed:

Ronald Reagan may have been a hard line conservative, but had Wellstone died during his watch you wouldn't have heard liberals asking whether the Gipper had had him offed. Bush is different. Asking mailmen to spy on ordinary Americans, creating military tribunals for anyone deemed an "enemy combatant," locking prisoners of war in dog cages, spending a decade's worth of savings in six months, allowing journalists to die rather than provide them with help in a war zone, smearing Democratic politicians as anti-American, invading sovereign nations without excuse--these are acts that transgress essential American reasonableness. A man capable of these things seems, by definition, capable of anything.

A frightening summary of the track record of a president in a western democracy. A sad reflection on the state of politics in the US at present.

posted at 2:12 PM (UK) | |