Our elected elite

“Folly, [O.Fr, folie, < fol, FOOL.] lack of understanding or good judgement.” Webster Dictionary All one has to do is watch and read the daily news to become totally underwhelmed by the complete futility of what our great leaders at the provincial and federal level understand, if anything at all. Here’s Premier Campbell, just having delivered us the new (what’s it for again?) Harmonized Sales Tax and committed the ultimate electoral stupidity by delivering the next provincial Election to the gleeful babbling harridan Carole James. Does this guy not read the newspaper and if he did, couldn’t he find someone who could explain in 100 words or less why it’s a good tax? Come next election, goodbye Gordon. Look what happened to Kevin Rudd Down Under. He thought a Super Tax on mining companies would be a great idea. The resource-dependent economy in Australia recoiled and the members of his own party overthrew him in order to save their own political hides. Untested she may be, but the new PM Julia Gillard knows enough not to kill the golden goose that’s the mainstay of the Aussie economy. Like Gordon Brown in England, Paul Martin in Canada and Margaret Thatcher, Mr. Rudd went from very popular to poison because he failed to see what is and isn’t important to the electorate. President Obama is going through the same phase now. It’s rather lame now to blame George Bush for America’s problems. The BP oil spill can’t be fixed by the White House but the larger issues of a futile nine-year war in Afghanistan, a completely unsolvable and unpayable public debt, big time unemployment numbers, unsustainable federal spending and declining U.S. prestige are occurring on his watch. He does seem to be in over his head. As his approval ratings decline, he seems to be on track to be a one termer President, something unthinkable only one year ago. Stephen Harper, alone among world leaders, still seems to be getting by nicely despite having a minority government. The billion dollar G20 boondoggle was a waste of money, but the sweet irony of the final communiqué promises us that in the future, governments promise to better balance their books by cutting deficits to half of current levels. Yeah right, and my real name is Donald Duck! Compared with Angela Merkel’s wobbly coalition, the unravelling of Nicholas Sarkozy’s formerly solid French presidency, fractious Eastern European bickering, imminent Southern European bankruptcy, Chinese belligerence, North Korean zaniness, Iran’s volatility, Venezuelan descent into chaos and unimaginably large debt by sovereign nations, it appears Canada is run fairly well. Harper hosted World leaders having a good time in Toronto while us peasants picked up the tab for a few hundred window smashers and a whole bunch of cops making triple time for standing around while their cars got torched. Who knew being prime minister was this easy? It sure helps to have a compliant Parliament and a probably lenient electorate when the writ comes down. Unless some unforeseen political virus infects him, Harper will be PM for a while yet. You can’t say that about most of the world’s elected leaders.