Re Harper & Obama --

Nah. Both men have that knack.

Obama psychoanalyzed gun-owning, religious Pennsylvanians for being anti-trade while he spent his time demagoguing free trade, he told an aspiring small business owner that we should 'spread the wealth', and said that you're selfish if you don't want tax hikes.

It takes a special sort to win Ronald Reagan's country after saying those sorts of things -- not unlike winning its Trudeavian neighbour after telling a major region that it suffered from a 'culture of defeat', saying that it didn't matter whether the country had one, two, or ten governments a decade hence, looking like a deer in headlights after being asked if one loved one's country and mumbling something about "great potential", and telling people that the Kyoto Accord is a "socialist conspiracy".

No, Barry and Steve are reflections in a funhouse mirror. When either of them are taking questions from the press, you can practically see the gears whirring, as they hold themselves in check. "Don't say something stupid, don't say something stupid, don't say someth... OH, DAMMIT TO HELL! Why'd I just say that?!"

Funnily enough, that sort of ideological discipline makes a person pretty good at governing a country.

So we'll see.

But I expect still more glorious quotes to come from both the president and the prime minister.

Re: Harper and Obama

Its like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby getting together again! Except Bob Hope has been replaced by a pudgier, un-funny, smarmy power monger who is under the mind control powers of the oil patch bosses.

And so far as the Western Separatist Blogger sorts and their tirades... I watched Fight Club many times and loved the ending. Down with corporate America! Down with Credit card bills!

Re Iceland, though -- I told you how much I approved of it.

Brown so would get my vote in the next British general election.

Back to Obama --

I rest my case.

BUT SHE DID HOLD SEANCES!!!!

Ronnie used an Ouiji board. Are we now into such a PC / revisionist era that the nuttiness of the Reagan era is now to be expunged?

And the Maritimes _does_ have a culture of defeat and the dole.

Is it something you say?

Anyway, Nancy Reagan didn't hold seances. That was Mary Todd Lincoln's thing. Nancy consulted an astrologist to plan her husband's schedule. Far different nuttiness.

***

I'm just saying, both the president-elect and the prime minister have foot-in-mouth syndrome in common.

Sonny boy, if Nancy Reagan did consult astrologists isn't it a hard line to take to deny she was a bit of a next worlder, leaned a little on the ouija board, spoke to the ether in a common group and was therefore a whack job?

"...Both Reagans have always been superstitious, observing such harmless rituals as knocking on wood and walking around, never under, ladders. The President puts a certain coin and a gold lucky charm in his pocket each morning, and routinely tosses salt over his left shoulder not just when he spills some but before all his meals..."

Coming from pagans its all pretty pagan for a good republican as far as I can tell. Revisit history as part of the defactifying of Reagan as you will but this was pretty well publicly known at the time (aka when you were in diapers). Cue the theremin!

See also the full range of nutjobs on the job here, including:

"...Then, after John Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of Reagan, Nancy hired Quigley in May 1981 to be the Reagans’ full-time astrologer after Quigley said she could have foreseen the assassination attempt had she been studying Ronald Reagan’s chart. Nancy asked Quigley if she would waive her fee, but Quigley refused because, as she said, “People tend not to value advice they don’t have to pay for....”"

Cheap ass and freaked out! Remember this, grasshopper: the pre-moral-majority, pre-AIDS, pre-Berlin-Wall-falling world was a very different place. What is now called "moral relativism" by echo chambered moral relativists was then called having a personality. ;-)

I remember this all, Alan. But I was weird -- I would read the newspages of our various papers when I was a toddler, and ponder the Berlin Wall as I played in the sandbox.

I have old Mad Magazine issues which made fun of the Reagans.

Very different world than today's, of course -- the youth vote, for instance, was Republican.

Then they grew up, then they got corrupt and lazy and then they lost to Obama!

By the way, Princeton was on ESPN U (I have all the sports packages) playing football last night. Excellent helmet - like Michigan but orange and black. Very old school.

The cycle of life...

Mind you, Obama is of that generation, too (graduated from college in '83) -- his first presidential vote would have been for Carter over Reagan in '80 and his second for Mondale in '84. Wrote of telling friends he was going to Chicago to work against what was being done by "Reagan and his minions".

Re Princeton --

Oh, really? I understand the team is actually pretty decent these days -- had their first bonfire in 15 years in 2006.