Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Right wing extremists
Do not read this if you do not want to know what happens in series seven of the West Wing!
All the signs are that I have chosen the wrong days to go to the Hay Festival. The Al Gore event looks like it was even more unmissable than Clinton (yes, I missed that one as well). His analysis of the Bush administration is spot on even though it is both obvious and a teensy-weensy bit cursory:
Al Gore has made his sharpest attack yet on the George Bush presidency, describing the current US administration as "a renegade band of rightwing extremists".
In an interview with the Guardian today, the former vice-president calls himself a "recovering politician", but launches into the political fray more explicitly than he has previously done during his high-profile campaigning on the threat of global warming.
Denying that his politics have shifted to the left since he lost the court battle for the 2000 election, Mr Gore says: "If you have a renegade band of rightwing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right."
There is no indication if he said this on the night of course but it would have been nice to have found out for myself. I will just have to settle for another losing Presidential candidate next Saturday - that is Alan Alda, who, as Arnie Vinnick, is reputed to have lost the fictional race for an idealised White House by the narrowest of margins in the seventh and final series of the West Wing. I wonder what he will have to say about Santos?
All the signs are that I have chosen the wrong days to go to the Hay Festival. The Al Gore event looks like it was even more unmissable than Clinton (yes, I missed that one as well). His analysis of the Bush administration is spot on even though it is both obvious and a teensy-weensy bit cursory:
Al Gore has made his sharpest attack yet on the George Bush presidency, describing the current US administration as "a renegade band of rightwing extremists".
In an interview with the Guardian today, the former vice-president calls himself a "recovering politician", but launches into the political fray more explicitly than he has previously done during his high-profile campaigning on the threat of global warming.
Denying that his politics have shifted to the left since he lost the court battle for the 2000 election, Mr Gore says: "If you have a renegade band of rightwing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right."
There is no indication if he said this on the night of course but it would have been nice to have found out for myself. I will just have to settle for another losing Presidential candidate next Saturday - that is Alan Alda, who, as Arnie Vinnick, is reputed to have lost the fictional race for an idealised White House by the narrowest of margins in the seventh and final series of the West Wing. I wonder what he will have to say about Santos?
