I believe it was Thomas Jefferson that said we needed a revolution “every twenty years.” I can’t find the exact quote, but hey, after seeing the religious right nearly succeed in turning this country into a theocracy over the last 8 years, I can certainly get with the sentiment.

Not at all. I would think that invading Canada would be the first order of business for whoever is the next President.

Having said that, what’s the rule for America invading one of its own states? Wouldn’t that stop such an invasion?

(/anti-Canadian snark)

I hadn’t realised you were Canadian, and of course your perspective will be different from that in the UK!

By the look of it the PM of Britain is less of a statesman in the eyes of the populace than the Canadian PM is (which makes sense – that ocean does make quite a difference).

However, those that objected to my statement are totally entitled to hold any opinion they wish. That is the price of democracy.

The last time our Head of State did anything the Head of Government didn’t want him to was 1926, and it caused a world-wide (at least Commonwealth-wide) change in How Things Worked. I don’t see the Queen at the G8 representing Canada, it’s Mr. Harper. Mr. Bush doesn’t sit down with the Queen to discuss U.S.-Canada relations; he talks to Mr. Harper. The important residence isn’t Windsor Castle (or even Rideau Hall, even if State Affairs (where no affairs of state take place) do happen there), it’s 24 Sussex Drive.

I sort of think that the Head of Government in Commonwealth democracies – including yours, Andy W – is more on par with the governmental function of the person being described as “not *my* president” than the Head of State.

You can refer to the President of Oceania any way you wish; but he’s your country’s leader, in the same way the robot-who-would-be-King is mine. I may not like it, I may not trust him, I may do everything in my power to make sure that he never gets a majority, but he’s the leader of my country, and I wish him to be the best he can be, for my country’s sake.

(Oh, and trust me, we’ve had worse, on both sides of the power struggle).

An ability with foreign policy is almost as important over here for a senior politician as domestic policy, and thier performance is keenly watched and judged. (Current leaders in the diplomatic stakes are the French – EU presidency, Carla Bruni and a really good Foreign minister help a lot with that!)

One problem Bush has had was that he followed Clinton, who was brilliant on the diplomatic front. He was never going to look good as a result, but the subsequent handling of some knotty problems (i.e. the Kyoto Agreement) was not only inept, but needlessly insulting.

For the USA’s friends the last 8 years has at times been downright embarassing, like having a best friend who turns up to social events either drunk or with his trousers on backwards.

Hopefully whoever gets in will be an improvement on the last incumbent. Unfortunately one candidates performance in particular has left something to be desired (Hint: She got her first passport last year – my daughter has more experience with foreign travel for heaven’s sake, and she’s 13!)

And this stuff IS important. The US is a net importer of goods and raw materials and after the last few weeks the national debt situation hasn’t exactly improved. Iraq and Afghanistan have overstreached the military to the point that further adventures are flatly out of the question.

I really do not envy the person who finally gets that job. Good luck to whoever lands it!

to quote from the article you linked to:

[But the consortium, looking at a broader group of rejected ballots than those covered in the court decisions, 175,010 in all, found that Mr. Gore might have won if the courts had ordered a full statewide recount of all the rejected ballots. This also assumes that county canvassing boards would have reached the same conclusions about the disputed ballots that the consortium's independent observers did. The findings indicate that Mr. Gore might have eked out a victory if he had pursued in court a course like the one he publicly advocated when he called on the state to "count all the votes."]

As I stated on other occasions but seem to have forgotten this time – “when all the votes were counted”.
Sorry for my omission this time.

Its a tradition that goes back 208 years…

There’s so much historically inaccurate wrapped up in this single statement that it would take a large amount of correction just to get it up to being simply “wrong.”

Just for a start, European nations started moving seriously towards “cradle to grave” welfare states post WWII. This was *after* they had fought two ruinously expensive total wars that had essentially mortgaged their superpowerness forever more. Their fall from power had little to do with socialism and much to do with the millions of deaths and trillions worth of damages caused by those wars.