John Cleese's View of the Election
This is John Cleese's opinion on the American election November 2, 2004. It was posted on Cleese's new web site http://www.thejohncleese.com
"Some of you may have noticed that there is a Presidential election in the United States next Tuesday.Those of you living in that great country may still have an open mind as to how you are going to vote. So it may be of interest to know what some of the people are saying in Britain, since it is America’s principal ally in Iraq.I would like to point out that the main British financial paper, The Financial Times, and the main British financial magazine, the Economist, have both endorsed John Kerry. In addition, in this morning’s London Times, Anatole Kaletsky writes “The primary function of democracy is not to elect good leaders, since nobody can predict in advance how a politician will perform. It is to eject leaders who have manifestly failed. The ability to remove leaders who turn out to be corrupt, dangerous, outrageously dishonest or manifestly incompetent is the primary privilege and duty of any democracy. And if any leader in our lifetime deserved to be ejected by voters, regardless of their ideology or political persuasion, it is surely President Bush. He inherited a prosperous, peaceful, law-abiding country which was universally admired around the world. He promised, if elected, to govern as a “compassionate conservative”, to end partisan confrontation in Washington and to run a “humble” foreign policy which would respect other countries and show restraint in the use of America’s global power. Four years later, he presides over a struggling economy, the steepest four-year loss of jobs since the Great Depression, and now has the biggest budget deficits and trade imbalances on record. Far worse, he started an unnecessary war on false pretences and mismanaged it so disastrously that the instability of the Middle East is probably now a greater danger to world peace than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. The President has failed in his primary military mission of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and destroying al-Qaeda. Even the task of eliminating the Taliban and stopping the flow of fundamentalist teachings from Saudi Arabia has proved too much. Imagine the state of the world today if instead of invading Iraq, America had finished the job against Saudi Arabia, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. If, for example, Mr Bush had devoted a fraction of the military manpower and the $200 billion wasted in Iraq on rebuilding Afghanistan that benighted country would soon be the Switzerland of the Himalayas. To make matters worse, Mr Bush has failed in all these tasks, while breaking every promise he made about his character and leadership style. Instead of running a bipartisan government of national unity, he has been the most ideological, divisive and extremist leader America has ever seen. Instead of showing humility in his international dealings, his punitive and aggressive foreign policies — not only against Iraq but also against North Korea, Venezuela, Iran and even Germany and France — have transformed America into the most hated country on earth. Instead of respecting the primacy of the US Constitution, he has imprisoned thousands of people without trial or charge — many no doubt dangerous terrorists, but some presumably just ordinary people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Americans cannot bring themselves to vote against the President after this record, we must ask whether American democracy is capable of performing its primary function.”The London Times is of course owned by the dreaded Rupert Murdoch.Finally I would note that, at the last count, 36 American newspapers that endorsed Mr. Bush last time have switched their support to Mr. Kerry. Only 6 have flipped flopped in the opposite direction."
"Some of you may have noticed that there is a Presidential election in the United States next Tuesday.Those of you living in that great country may still have an open mind as to how you are going to vote. So it may be of interest to know what some of the people are saying in Britain, since it is America’s principal ally in Iraq.I would like to point out that the main British financial paper, The Financial Times, and the main British financial magazine, the Economist, have both endorsed John Kerry. In addition, in this morning’s London Times, Anatole Kaletsky writes “The primary function of democracy is not to elect good leaders, since nobody can predict in advance how a politician will perform. It is to eject leaders who have manifestly failed. The ability to remove leaders who turn out to be corrupt, dangerous, outrageously dishonest or manifestly incompetent is the primary privilege and duty of any democracy. And if any leader in our lifetime deserved to be ejected by voters, regardless of their ideology or political persuasion, it is surely President Bush. He inherited a prosperous, peaceful, law-abiding country which was universally admired around the world. He promised, if elected, to govern as a “compassionate conservative”, to end partisan confrontation in Washington and to run a “humble” foreign policy which would respect other countries and show restraint in the use of America’s global power. Four years later, he presides over a struggling economy, the steepest four-year loss of jobs since the Great Depression, and now has the biggest budget deficits and trade imbalances on record. Far worse, he started an unnecessary war on false pretences and mismanaged it so disastrously that the instability of the Middle East is probably now a greater danger to world peace than the Soviet Union was during the Cold War. The President has failed in his primary military mission of capturing or killing Osama bin Laden and destroying al-Qaeda. Even the task of eliminating the Taliban and stopping the flow of fundamentalist teachings from Saudi Arabia has proved too much. Imagine the state of the world today if instead of invading Iraq, America had finished the job against Saudi Arabia, the Taliban and al-Qaeda. If, for example, Mr Bush had devoted a fraction of the military manpower and the $200 billion wasted in Iraq on rebuilding Afghanistan that benighted country would soon be the Switzerland of the Himalayas. To make matters worse, Mr Bush has failed in all these tasks, while breaking every promise he made about his character and leadership style. Instead of running a bipartisan government of national unity, he has been the most ideological, divisive and extremist leader America has ever seen. Instead of showing humility in his international dealings, his punitive and aggressive foreign policies — not only against Iraq but also against North Korea, Venezuela, Iran and even Germany and France — have transformed America into the most hated country on earth. Instead of respecting the primacy of the US Constitution, he has imprisoned thousands of people without trial or charge — many no doubt dangerous terrorists, but some presumably just ordinary people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. If Americans cannot bring themselves to vote against the President after this record, we must ask whether American democracy is capable of performing its primary function.”The London Times is of course owned by the dreaded Rupert Murdoch.Finally I would note that, at the last count, 36 American newspapers that endorsed Mr. Bush last time have switched their support to Mr. Kerry. Only 6 have flipped flopped in the opposite direction."
posted by Dancin' Steve at 9:12 PM
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