JO - Ja wouldn't stare down Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil

From my archive of press clippings:

Jamaica Observer

Ja wouldn't stare down Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Dear Editor,

With his back to the wall, the prime minister has devised a tactic which at least has a fighting chance of working. He has come out of his corner of the ring swinging, in the diplomatic fight with the Obama administration. His bona fide in the Dudus matter may be a little weak, as many suspect, and his position, in real terms, may well be motivated by self-interest and self-preservation, but at least he is a fighter, and not a weeper, as a certain woman was reputed to have become when faced with the Trafigura scandal.

Read the whole letter here.

Snippet(s):

"Word in Washington is that Obama can indeed be bullied - and has been bullied - according to his opponents, because of not wanting it to appear that as a liberal he is a hard taskmaster, preferring to be known as "non-confrontational". Now, where did I hear this term before? After all, he has just let Honduras bully the USA.

Now, this assumption may be a risky one, since others - Obama's supporters - say that he is as tough as nails, but acts in such a deliberate manner that he is not easily drawn by hot rhetoric."

&

"(O)ne of the things which has most riled the State Department is Minister Baugh's and the administration's foreign policy moves. We have joined the Latin American and Caribbean breakaway OAS group. Its first item of business is the stated desire to break what they see as US hegemony in the region, and then to support Argentina in its grouse with Britain over the Falklands."

_____
Patrick Blake
mysterymonpatrick@hotmail.com

re: "A Bureaucrat's Aside"

O at The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat ("The Optimist says: "The Glass is Half Full." The Pessimist says: "The Glass is Half Empty." The Bureaucrat says: "What we need are 5 glasses, 1/10th the size." The Angry Drunk Bureaucrat says: "Where's my damned Bourbon?"") shares some insight into political scandals.

Money quote(s):

"Political scandals, no matter how minor or inocuous, will stick in the public consciousness much more firmly if they involve sex, even if it is only tangentally related to the incident at hand."