Posted 2:54 PM by Paul
Post Election Post Mortem

Readers of this blog ( all three of you) will be surprised that I have failed to pass comment on the election of George Bush for a second term. There are reasons for my absense from the Blogosphere

• I was crying
• I was acting as a therapeutic e-counsellor to distressed Americans, particularly Democrats in the Southern States who were getting homophobic insults for having a Kerry bumper sticker
• I was working on a creative pitch for McCains Home Fries - This is not a joke
• I thought I would wait a while until I had something to contribute rather than just pour out bile into already polluted cyber space

So here are some my thoughts on the the past two weeks.

The Debates. Kerry won 3-0 but it did not matter one jot. US electoral politics is now about culture, values and emotion not intellect and ideology. I repeat. Will Smith for 2008!

Gay Marriage. Make it compulsory

Tony Blair. Has taken to wearing a lot of make up when on TV. And what's with that awful pink shirt, orange TV make up and bouffant hair? Is he turning into the Child Catcher?

France. Now officially the opposition to Bush. The state funeral send off from Paris accorded to former revolutionary icon and corrupt minor despot Yasser Arafat was a big two fingers to Washington. Did they have a reason for according him full military honours? Or were they just having a laugh at Bush's expense? Blair's pleas to Germany and France that now is the time to build bridges with the Bush administration appear to have been ignored. What a surprise. The idea that Tony has any influence with anyone outside his own cabinet is one of the abiding conceits of modern British politics. Bush is just humouring him and Chirac clearly thinks he is a light-weight.

Falluja. They keep talking about an action by Iraqi troops supported by the US. But strangely we have seen no images of swarthy men with moustaches taking burnt out buildings or going in to Mosques. Unless they are the rebels that is. Just guys who look like they are straight out of the Waltons. It is like history on rewind. Does anyone remember Vietnamistaion? The South Vietnamese troops lasted a few weeks before they gave up. If the US want to hold Iraq they will have to fund an occupation for 20 years. There is no budget plan option on this one.

November 3rd A lot of commentators have talked about the visceral hatred between the two Americas. I have seen enough of that via e-mail and on the web. What is less commented on is the visceral sadness, not just because of a good candidate beaten but because of the end of an era. The end of a notion of America. Faith has triumphed over reason. I commented in an e-mail to about 30 people that I never shared the hope of my Democrat friends that Kerry would win. Esti - a New York Jewish woman replied that she also was certain of a Bush victory. I paraphrase her words -

" The Christian right is in the ascendant and the America that many Democrats talk about no longer exists. That America. Our America... is long gone"

It was like she was talking abut the death of parent. Tom Turley a man in his 30s who has travelled the world working for USAid and is by no means a left wing radical summed up the social divide and the political malaise when he wrote to me about life in Denver. In the motorway intersections small camps of the destitute are beginning to spring up. Cards outside their shanties proclaim that they have gone bust due to not being able to pay their hospital bills. But one man in rags run out into the road shouting after a car with a Kerry bumber sticker

" That John Kerry! He is stabbing our troops in the back!!"

The Dollar. A soft currency used to buy oil and hamburgers. If the deficit grows any bigger and foreign investors keep refusing to buy US Treasury Bonds the green back will soon be on a par with the Turkish Lira.

Fingerprinting All Visitors to the US. Bush's plan to push the US tourist industry into total crisis.

" I know kids! Lets go to Florida. When you arrive at immigration they make you feel like a criminal. You have the added fun of wondering if you will be allowed in to the USA when the software has a bad day and they suspect that mum is Osama in drag."

I suspect that this in in fact a covert French plan to boost visitor numbers to the Dordogne. However, with the dollar plunging the USA is now a very cheap holiday destination. Perhaps we will all put up with feeling like we are entering San Quentin in order to take advantage of dirt cheap hotels and theme parks with short queues and cheap burgers.

The Black Watch. I will come on to that later