George W. Bush

Bickering about US bipartisanship

In his US presidential victory speech on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama said, "Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long".

It's a familiar message in US politics. When George W Bush was running for president in 2000, he told Americans, "I'm a uniter, not a divider".  But politicians who vow to change Washington are often changed by Washington. Partisanship is entrenched in the system.

However, senate historian Don Ritchie says while the political party divisions have evolved over many decades, members of Congress have always come to Washington with very different visions of what they want to do. 

"Those who love legislation and those who love sausage should never see how either are made. It's not a nice, pretty, efficient, clean, reasonable process.

To nuke, or not to nuke, Iran?

I would guess that, for most people, the use of nuclear weapons is not even a matter for debate. Indeed, since the last actively deployed nuclear weapon showed its true colours 64 years ago, even the most belligerent of world leaders have yielded to a saner instinct and kept their fingers off the button, to few complaints.

But there's another opinion. Its current champion, in the media at least, is John Bolton, George W. Bush's one-time pick as Ambassador to the United Nations. In a conference ironically entitled "Ensuring Peace", Bolton argued that the only sure way to stopping a nuclear first strike is - to initiate a nuclear first strike.