Tuesday, January 19, 2016

As Others See Them

The dangers inherent in electing one of the Republican idiots to the presidency were briefly exposed in recent days with the release of four Americans who had been jailed in Iran for various reasons, mostly contrived.

Not just the airheads seeking the presidency, but also their party-mates in the zoo called Congress, had tried to block the nuclear agreement with Iran unless it included a deal to release the Americans, especially the Washington Post reporter,  Jason Razaian.

Linking these two unrelated issues would have violated every tenet of good-faith diplomacy known to international relations, and would have jeopardized not only the most important peace development in the Middle East in three decades, but also the delicate negotiations going on offstage involving an exchange deal to release the prisoners.

The Republican nincompoops, in their ignorance and buffoonery, very nearly sabotaged both these important negotiations.   Theirs is the kind of shout-first, think-later (if at all) bluster that could turn all our little wars into one great, big World War III if practiced by our head of state.

Does anyone actually want to risk nuclear war by putting one of these imbeciles into the Oval Office?

Recent debate in the U.K. Parliament gave an indication of what citizens of other nations think of the people seeking the GOP nomination for president.  Half a million Brits petitioned Parliament to ban the Republican front-runner, Donald Trump, from the U.K. on grounds of hate speech.

MP’s debated the issue for about three hours. “An idiot,” is how Gavin Newlands, a Scottish National Party MP described Trump. “ I have tried to find different, perhaps more parliamentary adjectives to describe him but none was clear enough. He is an idiot,” Newlands said.

Even Conservative politicians found Trump appalling. The Conservative member Victoria Atkins said he could be called a "wazzock" -- a mild insult that can be “used on telly without frightening your gran."

Gavin Robinson, a Northern Irish member of Parliament branded him a “ridiculous xenophobe” and a "buffoon." Keir Starmer, a Labour politician and former chief prosecutor, disagreed. “That is not buffoonery. That is absolutely repugnant,” he said.

Naz Shah, a Labour politician, called Trump a “demagogue who panders to people’s fears, rather than their strengths.”

Trump is “not only racist but homophobic and misogynistic,” said Rupa Huq, a Labourite. 

To Marcus Fysh, a Conservative, Trump is “the orange prince of American self-publicity.” Labour member Tulip Siddiq, said that Britain needed to prevent “a poisonous, corrosive man from entering our country.”

Is this the image the American people want their president to project to the rest of the world?