‘League of Democracies’ – Would the U.S. Qualify?

May 6, 2008

How this Obama-Clinton race works in a ‘democratic society’ is best explained here.

The day begins with the Clinton campaign "leaking" something to the Drudge Report to set expectations for the day. That then gets repeated on political blogs and cable news, where Clinton surrogate Terry McAuliffe elaborates. Today’s "expectation": That the Clinton campaign expects a "15 point" defeat in North Carolina.
…
7:30 p.m. ET in North Carolina the real results start to come in and reveal Clinton then doing "better than expected" (at least better than the new expectations promoted during the day).

The media talking heads then ask aloud why Obama can’t "close the deal" (in Clinton’s own words) and what is numerically a defeat for Clinton (because the results, even in her recent wins, bring her objectively farther from the nomination in the context of the smaller number of delegates then available) gets spun as a Clinton victory.

To me that seems to be an apt description. But this description is not one of democracy. It is a tale of the rule of media empires.

McCain, and some Obama foreign policy advisors, want a ‘League of Democracies’ to challenge ‘rogue regimes’.

What are the criteria for joining that club?

Having primaries even after one party candidate already lost in the votes?
Permanent one party rule like in Japan?
A huge majority voting for Putin?
Helmut Kohl ruling Germany for 16 years?
Regular 1-2 year change of government like in Italy and Israel?
Low voter participation in elections like in the U.S. and Iran?
The ‘freedom’ of the masses to be robbed by a few?

Somehow I never got the distinctions between these variencies of ‘Democracy’, though the last one seems to fit best as a common denominator in McCain’s view.

But who really would be a part of a ‘League of Democracies’?

Would the U.S. qualify?

Posted by b on May 6, 2008 at 19:35 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Rouge Regimes?
Is that like this?
Rouge King

Posted by: R Nr | May 6 2008 20:25 utc | 1

maybe Venezuela

Posted by: Cloud | May 7 2008 0:49 utc | 2

I suspect the following sentence tells the tale:
McCain, and some Obama foreign policy advisors, want a ‘League of Democracies’ to challenge ‘rouge regimes’.
In the beltway, the true policy makers all wear whatever hat gets them appointed. Their only loyalty is to power. They all run in the same incestuous circles.

Posted by: Uncle $cam | May 7 2008 2:05 utc | 3

15 points it is! Proving once again that Hillbillary is just a red-haired stepchild
of focus groups and polling surveys: she would stay in Iraq, cut Fed taxes, increase
the liberal socialist welfare dole regime like there was no Lyndon Johnson, and bring
on either 30% increase in taxes, or “League of Deficits” to challenge solvent regimes
such as Iran, which has the lowest external debt of any nation in the world par none.
And she would do that all by parsing, and externalizing, and demonizing, and ‘it all
depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is’ing. When the deficit was $17T, and
the US$ and the Mexican peso were at parity, and taxes, surcharges and fees had grown
from 50% of a person’s income to 67%, plunging the nation into ad hoc, freewheeling,
freemasonry of republican plantation elites and masses of inchoate indentured slaves,
then, and only then, would the US be ready for 2016 triumphal ascension of Jeb
Bush and Rise of a Fourth Reich of the GHW Bush Crime Family, of which Hillbillary
is clearly the honorable consigliari-understudy, grip, best boy and baggage handler.

Posted by: Pierre Leon | May 7 2008 3:05 utc | 4

sorry #4, but it looks like hillary is toast

Posted by: anna missed | May 7 2008 4:25 utc | 5

What are the criteria for joining that club?
foremost would be that it serves u.s. interests to have x as a member

Posted by: b real | May 7 2008 4:45 utc | 6

@1 – thx – corrected.
—
Big loss in North Carolina, very narrow win in Indiana, but Clinton wants to go on. I can’t see how she can win this one. Even the spin she is putting out is lame.
But when she loses, as she will, will she support Obama or McCain? With McCain winning she would again have a chance in 2012, with Obama winning she would have to wait ’til 2016. Ahh — the fine calculations of “democracy.”

Posted by: b | May 7 2008 6:39 utc | 7

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/05/07/talleyrand-and-the-gas-tax-holiday/“>Krugman:
I’m on record as saying that Hillary Clinton’s advocacy of a gas-tax holiday, while it wasn’t good policy, didn’t rise to the level of a crime.
Judging from last night’s results, however, it was worse than a crime: it was a mistake.

It is interesting that Clinton’s populist call to lower gas taxes didn’t get traction.
Is this a sign that the electorate is waking up and is now really looking at things politicians claim?
Seems so to me. Yesterdays results were quite unexpected with some polls claiming leads of 9-10% for Clinton.

Posted by: b | May 7 2008 19:02 utc | 8

Should fuck off right now, but maybe a bobby kennedy moment awaits…………

Posted by: Clinton | May 7 2008 20:55 utc | 9

I know another criteria:
* after having a constitution proposal struck down in referendum, rewrite it to something less intelligable and rerun it, this time without the referendum. Like our own EU.

Posted by: a swedish kind of death | May 7 2008 22:13 utc | 10

How about openly bragging about sabotaging primaries by fostering self-described “chaos” against your political opponents? How far will that get you in the League?

Posted by: Monolycus | May 8 2008 4:07 utc | 11

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