It is coming up to four years now since those of us in the southern hemisphere sat on our refresh buttons, well into the wee small hours of the afternoon, unsuccessfully willing the tyrant George W Bush to be cast from his throne. Somehow the planet has more or less survived those four years, but can't be said to be in anywhere near as healthy a condition as it was eight years ago.
And so the battle is on again. We have been watching quietly from the sidelines as Clinton II and Obama have tried gamely to dash each other against the rocks of the Democratic Party nomination. We have admired Clinton's gameness. We have cringed at some of the "Change" rhetoric that has been constantly leeching out of the Obama camp. (But this is, after all, America, home of the cringeworthy sentiment.) Ultimately, we have been swayed by the sense that Clinton is running for president because she can, whereas Obama is running for president either because he should or because he must. And we have been swayed also by the view of our good friend, the Very Wise Ian Hotmail, who has spent some time in those United States, that the hurdle to be jumped by a black man is higher than the hurdle to be jumped by a white woman.
But the final straw has been the appalling and opportunistic decision of Clinton to support those calling for a holiday reprieve from the gasoline tax (a call which, presumably, hasn't been frowned upon by the oil companies if it wasn't in fact manufactured by them all along). As you know, our view is that the issue of climate change is the only issue there is. We cannot abide someone who chooses, for their own short-term political gain, to jump on a bandwagon that has the sole effect (aside from the hoped-for effect on the voting patterns of SUV drivers) of spewing even more carbon into the atmosphere. Does she really want Clinton III (a.k.a. Chelsea) to bring her own children into a world that resembles the landscape of "Mad Max II" just so she (Chelsea) can say to them "Both of your grandparents were presidents"?
So we must say, Farewell Hillary, and please remember to take your husband with you when you go.
