Category Archive: American Politics
The Windmills of His Mind
In the northern Summer of 2025, we learned that former President Joe Biden is writing a memoir of his Presidency. He also mentioned that a number of European leaders have kept in contact with him, seeking his advice and continuing participation in affairs of the World. We have commented (almost) enough on the Biden Imbroglio, and don’t want (too much) to kick a man when he’s on the ground, so instead let’s hum a little tune, with apologies to Michel Legrand, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, and Noel Harrison: “Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a…
Continue Reading →Bidengate
“The cover-up is usually worse than the crime.” Richard Nixon was neither involved nor apprised-of the break-in at the Watergate, but in participating in the cover-up, he strayed over the political line into an area of illegality, leading to a threat of impeachment and his resignation. If he had shopped his staff at, for example, the tense and heated press conference on the evening of 26 October 1973 (see main image), he probably would have survived. Now let us consider what may rival the Watergate scandal: what looks more and more like a massive gaslighting operation to convince America, and…
Continue Reading →The Pardoner’s Tale
20 January 2025: President un-elect Joe Biden pardons family and friends President Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr, son of a Wilmington car salesman, issued this statement minutes before his successor was inaugurated, in fact, as all were gathered in the Capital Rotunda: “My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats, motivated solely by a desire to hurt me—the worst kind of partisan politics. Unfortunately, I have no reason to believe these attacks will end. I believe in the rule of law, and I am optimistic that the strength of our legal institutions will ultimately prevail over politics. But baseless…
Continue Reading →Jimmy Carter
President Carter with a dangerous friend
(1 October, 1924 – 29 December, 2024) Jimmy Carter seems by popular acclaim to have been a very nice guy, choc-full of honesty and integrity. It just goes to show that such qualities are not necessary or sufficient to be a good President of the United States. Carter was not a good President, but he was liked and respected for the human qualities that bloomed post-office, notably in the fields of diplomacy and philanthropy. His presidential legacy would seem to be the 1978 Camp David Accords, where his tendency to micro-manage and his own personal bona fides got two enemies…
Continue Reading →Now What?
The US Presidential election is coming to a head. Although 5 November 2024 is D-Day, early polling in numerous states has been going on for quite some time already. In a country of some 340 million (not counting the undocumented), where voting is a privilege rather than an obligation, free hot dogs, going-on-a-billion-dollars for advertising and events, and, in the case of the Democrat Party, Hollywood celebrities, are all deployed to get-out the vote. As of writing, the polls put the two candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, as even, or where in some cases one…
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