More evidence that McCain’s selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate was perhaps the single worst Presidential campaign decision ever made, this story from the New York Times: Who was the highest paid individual in Senator John McCain’s presidential campaign during the first half of October as it headed down the homestretch? Not Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s chief foreign policy adviser; not Nicolle Wallace, his senior communications staffer. It […]
This today from the Pew Research Center: Only 11% of Americans are satisfied with the way things are going in the U.S. today, which is the lowest figure ever recorded. Here’s a graph of the trend. By the way, who are these 11% of people who are satisfied with the way things are going nowadays? Also today from the Pew Center, especially for my friend Jill, additional confirmation that Republicans […]
I went to the office of La Poste on Rue d’Alésia and mailed my ballot on Monday. Even though I am solidly in the center of the political spectrum, this decision was not even a close one. Thinking about my decision, I realize that it was based on three separate but related fundamental notions. Trite and tired and cliched, maybe, but a big part of my decision was grounded in […]
In an amazing, in my view, example of the efficiency and courtesy of our county government in Sonoma County (not that I’m biased), we received in our mailbox at our apartment in Paris our absentee ballots for the upcoming election, along with all of the necessary other documents (such as the state and local ballot guides) exactly one week after requesting them by e-mail. I have no idea how they […]
Big controversy here in France this week. During a so-called “amicale” or “friendly” soccer match at the Stade de France on Tuesday between the national teams of France and Tunesia, a large number of the Tunesian fans decided to whistle (the equivalent of booing) during the singing of La Marseillaise, the French national anthem. This caused a strong reaction (one could say, an overreaction) from the French government, as noted […]
You gotta wonder sometimes. From the New York Times — Senate Passes Bailout Plan; House May Vote by Friday: In the House, officials of both parties said they were increasingly confident that politically enticing provisions bootstrapped to the original bill — including $150 billion in tax breaks for individuals and businesses — would win over at least the dozen or so votes needed to reverse Monday’s outcome and send the […]
From Paris, the recent “controversy” over Barack Obama’s “lipstick on a pig” remark looks just plain stupid, as does, frankly, the hand-wringing over the co-called Sarah Palin “phenomenon.” As for the former, you can only view the statement one of two ways — either Barack Obama innocently used an expression he’s used before (as has John McCain), or he used it intentionally as a reference to Palin’s statement at the […]
In France, that is … a poll published today by Le Figaro indicates that if the U.S. Presidential election were held today in France, Obama would win … by 80% to 8%! The article notes that a similar poll in Great Britain shows Obama ahead 49% to 12% (the rest were in pubs and unavailable for comment), and that polls in India and Kenya show Obama with leads of 9% […]
We were able to watch John McCain’s acceptance speech a day after he gave it, courtesy of the l’Assemblee Nationale and the Senat, which have a TV channel something like C-SPAN, and which broadcast the speech in its entirety (overdubbed, of course, by a translation in French). It was a bit difficult to listen to, because I found myself trying to do multiple things all at once — listen in […]
OK, Jill, here’s a hint (the question is here): I read on some blog yesterday that one of Ms. Palin’s apologists said that one of her foreign policy qualifications is that Alaska is the state closest to Russia. As I said, this is going to be fun!