Wednesday, November 03, 2004
Good news, bad news
Good news:
1) Bush re-elected - of course. Congrats to all my American readers (which is roughly about 90% of you out there).
2) I'm not out of my job - had Kerry won, there would have been a flood of good news stories in the mainstream media about how the things have turned the corner in Iraq and Afghanistan under the new Democrat leadership and its fresh, warm'n'fuzzy, multilateral approach. As the things stand now with Bush re-elected, Iraq and Afghanistan remain red states and the official status is still "quagmire"... And I can keep on publishing my "Good news from..." series.
3) the rest of the "international community" now has to put us or shut up. There was seemingly overwhelming hope out there, from Cairo and Lima to Berlin and Beijing, that Kerry would be elected and we could all return to the good old days of doing nothing, but doing it all together. Now, holding your breath and turning blue for the next four years is no longer a viable option. Foreign leaders and diplomats are deep down realists, and now that they know they have to deal with a Republican administration for the next four years, expect a thaw of sorts in international relations.
4) if the mainstream media could not put their favorite into the White House at a time of rather average economic performance and in the middle of a not very popular war, then their power is seriously degraded - if not broken.
Bad news:
1) the country is very polarised - arguably more so than at any other time in recent political memory: New England and the West Coast versus everything in between, which is a lot of ground; large cities versus small towns; urbia versus suburbia; religious versus agnostic.
2) four more years of vitriol. The Republicans are much better at moving on, partly because since they don't control the mainstream media, entertainment industry, universities and other liberal elite havens, their anger tends to stay more out of public sight. Not so our left-wing friends. Expect a lot of "the people have spoken, the bastards" plus an assortment of conspiracy theories.
Hell, I think I can live with that bad news.
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1) Bush re-elected - of course. Congrats to all my American readers (which is roughly about 90% of you out there).
2) I'm not out of my job - had Kerry won, there would have been a flood of good news stories in the mainstream media about how the things have turned the corner in Iraq and Afghanistan under the new Democrat leadership and its fresh, warm'n'fuzzy, multilateral approach. As the things stand now with Bush re-elected, Iraq and Afghanistan remain red states and the official status is still "quagmire"... And I can keep on publishing my "Good news from..." series.
3) the rest of the "international community" now has to put us or shut up. There was seemingly overwhelming hope out there, from Cairo and Lima to Berlin and Beijing, that Kerry would be elected and we could all return to the good old days of doing nothing, but doing it all together. Now, holding your breath and turning blue for the next four years is no longer a viable option. Foreign leaders and diplomats are deep down realists, and now that they know they have to deal with a Republican administration for the next four years, expect a thaw of sorts in international relations.
4) if the mainstream media could not put their favorite into the White House at a time of rather average economic performance and in the middle of a not very popular war, then their power is seriously degraded - if not broken.
Bad news:
1) the country is very polarised - arguably more so than at any other time in recent political memory: New England and the West Coast versus everything in between, which is a lot of ground; large cities versus small towns; urbia versus suburbia; religious versus agnostic.
2) four more years of vitriol. The Republicans are much better at moving on, partly because since they don't control the mainstream media, entertainment industry, universities and other liberal elite havens, their anger tends to stay more out of public sight. Not so our left-wing friends. Expect a lot of "the people have spoken, the bastards" plus an assortment of conspiracy theories.
Hell, I think I can live with that bad news.
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