Category: Politics (explicit)

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But Michael Vick can’t catch a break

Great article in the NYTimes today about Pakistan’s supreme court ruling on Nawaz Sharif’s right to return to the country and campaign for high office. Now I’m not praising the article because it shows how the weakening of Musharraf’s support has led to an independent-minded judiciary. Nor am I praising it because of its deft depiction of the intricacies of power relations among Musharraf, Sharif and Benazir Bhutto.

No, I’m praising it because it included one very specific detail:

On Thursday, Mr. Chaudhry, leading a bench of seven judges, declared to a packed courtroom that the Sharifs had an “inalienable right to enter and remain in country, as citizens of Pakistan.”

Mr. Sharif’s supporters hugged each other and poured out of the white marble building onto the main avenue, where they slaughtered four goats in celebration. As blood spilled on the asphalt, Mr. Sharif’s backers shouted: “Farewell, farewell, Musharraf, farewell.”

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Gore Smash!

At City Journal, Harry Stein has an entertaining review of Al Gore’s aptly titled Assault on Reason:

But Al Gore is like one of those guys at a party with whom, once you get a few drinks in him, you never know what’s coming. He’s liable to strip to his underwear or start spewing expletives or waddle over with an outstretched hand and ingratiating smile and suddenly go for your ear like Mike Tyson. For just beneath that aging prep-boy facade, there’s an unmistakable anger and bitterness; where Bill Clinton has always seemed too comfortable in his skin, Gore has often seemed inclined to burst out of his, like some demented political version of the Incredible Hulk.

I don’t think “It is less an argument than an extended tantrum. Reading it is often like being locked in a room with a madman” is going to end up on the back cover of the paperback.

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VP Fight!

This op-ed by Walter Mondale on Cheney’s abuse of the authority of the vice president’s office is pretty entertaining:

The corollary to Cheney’s zealous embrace of secrecy is his near total aversion to the notion of accountability. I’ve never seen a former member of the House of Representatives demonstrate such contempt for Congress — even when it was controlled by his own party. His insistence on invoking executive privilege to block virtually every congressional request for information has been stupefying — it’s almost as if he denies the legitimacy of an equal branch of government. Nor does he exhibit much respect for public opinion, which amounts to indifference toward being held accountable by the people who elected him.

I think my favorite part is when he has to enlist Dan Quayle into the ranks of VPs who are

  1. not irrelevant and
  2. not evil.

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“An unfailing eye and ear for the ersatz and the kitsch”

In the new City Journal, Theodore Dalyrmple lays an unholy beatdown on Tony Blair’s decade as PM. I can’t do justice to its thoroughness, so give it a read.

It looks like there’s more fallout from having Terry Jones’ unfunny brother take over as PM: longtime VM reader and official pal Faiz K. is transferring from England to the U.S.! We’ll have to teach him all about REAL football, and why baseball isn’t as boring as it. . . oh, wait, it is.

Congrats on the impending move, Faiz! We’ll make Amurrricans of you and your family in short order!

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Good Night, Sweet Baba

 Mohammad Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, died yesterday:

The deposed king took up residence in a villa on Via Cassia, a main thoroughfare leading north out of Rome. He played chess and took walks. He was sometimes seen sitting in a café sipping a cappuccino or browsing through titles in a second-hand bookstore.

I can only imagine the baristas and bookstore clerks muttering to one another: “Psst! It’s that guy again! The one who keeps saying he’s the king of the Afghans!”

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Lay it down

Today’s WSJ has an interview with GlaxoSmithKline CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier. While the bulk of the interview covers the company’s Avandia crisis, JP also kicks some wisdom regarding the “developing world”:

WSJ: Glaxo recently donated 50 million pandemic flu vaccines to the World Heath Organization. What’s the story?

Dr. Garnier: It’s probably the largest vaccine donation ever. The company could have sold possibly those 50 million units. They [Glaxo] decided to set them aside because frankly those countries are not going to buy any pandemic vaccine. Some of them have no commitment to health care.

Let’s call a cat a cat. They’ll buy a lot of other things including Kalashnikovs before they allocate enough money for health care in their own countries.