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Showing posts from September, 2012

Clinton tells it like it is

Bill Clinton summed it up perfectly when he described the forthcoming election in the USA as a choice between ‘we’re all in this together’ or ‘you’re on your own’. Co-operation or dog-eat-dog. A role for government or the tyranny of the unbridled market. Barack Obama or Mitt Romney. Of course, to British ears, the perfectly decent idea of being ‘all in it together’ has been devalued somewhat through its disingenuous adoption by George Osborne and David Cameron. But on the lips of Mr Clinton it has slightly more credibility. He’s a rare beast, Clinton. An intellectual with a folksy, down-at-home style of delivery. As he engages with the arguments, we somehow forget that he’s William Jefferson Blythe III, the Rhodes Scholar. He’s the guy down at the local bar, who’s been around the block a few times and seen a thing or two. (Contrast this with the incumbent President, who can never disguise his intellectualism. A lot of people do like Obama, but in a way that they might have fond