Everybody’s been so focused on “The Best And Worst Super Bowl Ads” and the back-to-back blizzards in DC that the news about the presidential elections in Ukraine have been below-the-folded into oblivion, but the short version is that the Russian-backed dictator-in-waiting won, and the MILF-y right-wing nutjob chick with the Princess Leia do lost. This article in today’s Slate lays it out in a little more detail, but keeps it comprehensible for people who may not be up to speed on the ins and outs of Ukrainian politics.
What struck me about the whole story, though, is not the rise of a Russian puppet dragging Ukraine back into Moscow’s tent, but rather the slightly disquieting parallels to the political situation in this country and the possibility that, in some weird way, Ukraine is giving us a preview of the 2012 presidential election. To wit: the Orange Revolution of 2004 swept into power the charismatic and then-wildly-popular Viktor Yushchenko. He had movie-star good looks (until the Russians poisoned him and ruined his face) and ran on a platform of massive reform, only to be stymied by having to form a coalition government with Yulia Tymoshenko. The promise of “hope” and “change” was thwarted by parliamentary gridlock and obstructionism, Yushchenko became universally despised by the citizenry, and the global financial crisis has devastated the fragile Ukrainian economy. Yushchenko could only watch from the sidelines as the new election turned into a battle between the nationalist proto-fascist Tymoshenko and the strongman Yanukovych.
As our own political parties seem determined to de-evolve into lunatic fringe groups, we’ve already got the scary-crazy woman all lined up and rarin’ to go, the disgraced and hapless lame duck begging to be a one-term president, and I am just waiting for the Fearless Leader to emerge. We’re really on the verge of succumbing to a strongman who will use the extra-constitutional powers that the last administration successfully latched onto; Congress could effectively be permanently relegated to rubber-stamp status, even as peope like Larry Lessig and Bob Kerrey spell out ways to reform and re-enable Congress.
Dear Harvey, Pete, Barry, Kevin, and every other weathermonkey on Boston-area TV: Enough is enough. The fucking blizzard was THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO. It’s time to stop trotting out the same blurry videotape of cars stuck on Rt. 128 that is older than some of the people who are actually on your broadcast, just so we [...]
It’s going to be a long two months waiting for the iPad to actually ship so that all the tech bloggers and their hangers-on will stop writing so much speculative bullshit about iT and turn their attention iNstead to some other thing that’s going to Change Life As We Know iT. Since you cannot click [...]
Please, please, PUH-LEEZE stop talking about “What do we call the last decade?” Nobody could come up with an acceptable choice ten years ago, and nobody’s going to come up with one now. “Aughties” and “Naughties” are contrived and stupid, and so is the very idea that anything wraps up all nice and neatly into [...]
