Dateline: BUCHAREST

D: B is back today, after a hiatus of over a month. We will return to ‘normal’, i.e. to blogging about the most important issues of the day, as well as some more trivial matters that have to do with the authors’ extracurriculars. Also, stay tuned as we are working on launching a blog focusing specifically on Georgia and the South Caucasus.

And what a way to re-start this, than by posting an extraordinarily embarassing comment by Sarah Palin, on CBS’s evening news. When asked what she thought about the financial crisis, she threw in every shred of information that remotely smelled of economics, and that had been crammed into her head by advisors during the past few weeks. Also watch Jack Cafferty and Wolf Blitzer who go good cop - bad cop on Palin.

Below is the latest and brightest attempt so far by McCain to go negative on Obama. [Much better than the previous clip, which is spectacularly unfunny].

The video follows the, by now, traditional line of attack, which aims to portray Obama as glitzy, but hollow. I.e., charismatic but lacking substance. The video makes a somewhat less than subtle comparison with Britney Spears, and then makes the dooming question: Is he ready to lead?

Fair enough. From then on, however, the video becomes logically flawed. It goes on to expose two of Obama’s stances, as an illustration of the said thesis: opposition to offshore drilling, and raising electricity taxes. The idea behind this is, I think, to illustrate the prior thesis. Obama is not ready to lead because his policies are bad. Where is the flawed logic? Well, Obama, like Bush Jr., can turn out to be very good at leading. Now, whether the policies that come out of the business of leading are good or bad, is an entirely different story [or fish food, to translate a Romanian expression]. Obama can be very ready to lead, can be good at leading, and still his policies could be bad. Two different issues here, conflated by a stiff, uninspired and uninspiring McCain campaign. If I had one advice to give to McCain, that would be: hire Stephen Colbert! But, then again, his price tag might be beyond McCain’s budget.

More about this on Justin Webb’s blog.

Below is Barack Obama in Tiergarten, Berlin, in front of a crowd of 200,000, during his Middle Eastern/European tour. The tour was aimed at boosting his foreign policy credentials in the US, where he faces stiff competition on that particular front from the veteren McCain. Confronted by the press regarding Obama’s triumph in Europe, McCain replied, wryly, that he is keen on visiting Europe - not as a candidate, but as president-elect.

Obama’s rhetoric skills at their best here, performing an amazing speech [kudos to his speech-writers]. I find it hard for Obama to actually live up to the huge expectations he created, if elected in the fall. But I say that his performance in office is only half as impressive [in both rhetoric and general policy lines, and substance] as what we’ve seen so far, he would be on a course to changing US image abroad, and possibly even of restoring soft power to the declining hegemon. Can you say Kennedy?

Have a look at this excellent article from the  Economist. It takes apart, bit by bit, the Hillary campaign machine, and points to all of its malfunctioning parts that led to the biggest upset in recent American elections history.

To sum it up, Hillary lost because she was slow to grasp the formidable power of change versus the diminishing perceived relevane of experience, and because she lacked Obama’s vision in terms of using new media and the internet to connect, galvanize and rally supporters, and raise money.

It has been eight years since a young George W. Bush entered the White House, riding on a wave of Conservative revival following 8 years of prosperity unprecedented since the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s. At the time, Bush held many question marks for analysts and the public. His lack of substance was especially visible in foreign policy. Yet it was precisely foreign policy that became the paramount issue throughout his presidency.

What has happened since?

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Întrerup serialul despre Rusia pentru a-i răspunde lui Adi, care mă întreabă de ce îl susţin pe Barack Obama.

Deşi nu am scris până acum nimic de alegerile din State, am urmărit destul de atent cursa prezidenţială de acolo. Motivele sunt multe, şi depăşesc domeniul meu de interes profesional. Politica din State e relevantă pentru mine şi la un nivel personal, pentru că am avut ocazia să trăiesc ani buni acolo, pentru că am prieteni care sunt afectaţi personal de ce se întâmplă acolo. Şi, nu în ultimul rând, pentru că SUA încă este hegemon mondial şi, ca atare, ce se întâmplă acolo ne afectează pe toţi. Continue Reading »

După ce s-a perfecţionat la spaniolă, Hillary Clinton pica cu brio testul de rusă;

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