"So let it be written, so let it be done."

Is it just me or do

Dmitri Medvedev












and Hu Jintao












look like contrite, earnest disciples of The Man who speaks?
These Americans are really desperate!

Image credits 1 & 2

Eyes wide shut?

Sonal Shah, a member of President Obama's transition team, has 'renounced' her links to the VHP and it's affiliate in the USA, the VHP-A. Those who have been following this controversy that began immediately after she was appointed to the transition team and picked up steam after Vijay Parshad's powerful article in Counterpunch will be all the more confused with this seemingly contrite statement. Ms Shah has the gall to say :

"Had I been able to foresee the role of the VHP in India in these heinous events, or anticipate that the VHP of America could possibly stand by silently in the face of its Indian counterpart's complicity in the events of Gujarat in 2002 -- thereby undermining the American group's cultural and humanitarian efforts with which I was involved -- I would not have associated with the VHP of America."

meh! duh??

I am still confused as to what/who she is talking to here. Here we have somebody who has worked with the Clinton administration and Goldman Sachs telling is that she did not do even a most simple background check while associating with an organization! So we have the Disney princess-like well-intentioned Sonal Shah lending her name to the VHP-A because they were being charitable? A bit of a stretch isn't it? I mean you cannot really ascend the corporate ladder and actually work with the government if you are so wide-eyed innocent can you?

But of course that's not all to it. Ms Shah conveniently brushes aside the fact that her family ties to the VHP-A precede the work she did with the organization. The association with the VHP-A was a very natural thing for her to do. The key point is that she chose to, conscious or unconscious of the "rich" legacy of the VHP in contributing to India's communal fabric. So she's either a closet fundamentalist or a incompetent moron of the highest order(somehow that seems unlikely).

It's possible of course that Ms. Shah, in the best traditions of American insensitivity, just did not bother. However that's not an excuse. Those who are in the public sphere carry bigger burdens. That's a universal reality. Sonal Shah got caught. She better leave if she wants to save her already battered reputation in the USA.

Ps. Of course the joke in this is that things started heating up for Shah when former Republican senator Rick Santorum wrote an op-ed in the Philadelphia Enquirer criticizing her appointment. What was merely a 'lefty' fad suddenly became a 'bi-partisan' critique. Ms Shah's statement and her email to her 'supporters'(" I need to moblize [sic] people against the leftists and the right wing.") are merely desperate attempts to save her job. For some reason I keep getting reminded of Bill Clinton.

Gems (almost always overheard)

(over)Heard on the train to Delhi from a woman reading an article on barack Obama:

"bahut honest admi lagta hain..bilkul fraud nahin..apna abdul kalam jaisa"
/floor

"New era" and all...

Barack Obama is the 44th President of the United States of America. The last 21 months have seen a fascinating campaign, which has even attracted skeptics like me. It has been really interesting seeing a vibrant democracy at work, its structures and institutions churning out the best, the worst and the lot in between. On a personal note, it has been a most illuminating exercise to witness the contradictions within me while trying to reconcile the hypnotic allure of 24x7 media coverage and my passion for electoral politics with my skepticism of the self-righteous hyperbole that seems to characterize a lot of American politics. The coming days will see a bevy of voices and analyses elevate the incidents of the recent past to an iconic status. Hence I shall desist from following such a course and content myself with links to certain perspectives that interpret the Obama phenomenon in their own ways. The diversity of these perspectives is an indication of the challenge the Obama administration faces and perhaps hints at the reasons why it is bound to fail!

Andrew Sullivan in a magnum-opus piece in December 2007 passionately arguing the historical necessity of an Obama candidacy.
Katrina Vanden Heuvel in "The Nation" on the 4th Of November lays down the battle lines.
And last but not the least.....
My own analysis of the situation in April 2007. It's not one of my better written pieces and some of the points are contentious but I still stick with most of what I wrote then.

It will be most instructive re-visiting these opinions 4 years from now.

Ps. Totally useless fact---Obama is the second President after Martin Van Buren whose name, when typed in a Google application(gmail, blogger etc), is shown to possess an incorrect spelling.
Image Credits

You Know What.

H.L.Mencken on "you-know-what"

"The larger the mob,the harder the test. In small areas, before small electorates, a first-rate man effectively fights his way through, carrying even the mob with him by force of his personality. But when the field is nationwide, and the battle is waged chiefly at second and third hand, and the force of personality cannot so readily make itself felt, then all the odds are on the man who is, intrinsically, the most devious and mediocre--the man who can most easily adeptly disperse the notion that his mind is a virtual vacuum."

“The Presidency tends,year by year, to go to such men. As democracy is perfected, the office represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. We move towards a lofty ideal. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart’s desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.”

Haha.

ie. aside from the pitting of intelligence/forcefulness personality/character against dumbness/moron/devious/mediocre. Doesn't always work that way but what's a little exaggeration in humour!