04 Nov 2004 Silly International Election Coverage

Now that I have recommended two excellent pieces (here and here) about the U.S. election in the foreign press, just for fun, I’ll make fun of some silly ones:

…the government that Americans woke up to is a dangerous cocktail. Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House of Representatives, a majority of state houses and soon, President Bush will be able to stack the Supreme Court with conservative judges. America is a divided two-party democracy with an increasingly one-party state. …For Canada and the world, not to mention Americans themselves, this will be a worrisome four years. Some analysts expressed concern that a Kerry White House would see the rise of a protectionism that could hurt Canadian interests… However, the potential impacts of a Kerry administration… would have been relatively minor compared to the challenges we face in dealing with an angry, arrogant Bush administration unconstrained by the need to seek re-election and imbued with an almost providential belief in its mission. This will be a dangerous four years for Canada and the world. – Adrian Dix, who failed in the entire piece to mention even one actual threat George Bush poses to Canada, CBC News (Canada)

and

In the end it was as bad as the pessimists feared. Spurred by a Senate clean sweep in the South, the Republicans have strengthened their grip on the Senate and the House of Representatives, giving President George Bush a freer hand to push through his conservative legislative agenda in a second term. – Rupert Cornwell, writing a supposedly objective news story in The Independent (UK)

and

In Ohio the Republicans made one million phone calls in the last days of the campaign. To do that they needed their allies in every right wing group to cooperate fully. Granted the vote was probably stolen from Kerry, but it was also organized for Bush. – Duncan Cameron, who apparently knows something about voter fraud even John Kerry doesn’t suspect, writing in The Rabble (Canada)

and my personal favorite

A mystery Northern Ireland man has become a hero of right wing Americans after claiming on national TV and radio that 95% of Northern Ireland wants to see President Bush re-elected today. The man, who identified himself as “Christopher,” phoned in to a TV and radio show hosted by Rush Limbaugh, American’s most popular right-wing talk show host, to claim that Northern Ireland was backing President Bush because of his stand on terrorism… Do you know Christopher? email: [email protected] – Sean O’Driscoll, writing in The Belfast Telegraph (Northern Ireland)