I’m a bit testy today. It is your fault.
I stayed up late to watch the Superbowl. I saw one of the most technically interesting football games that I have ever seen. In the last quarter, I also saw the most gripping and exciting game that I have ever seen.
I don’t resent my tiredness this morning. Even though I shall probably stay up late and watch the Super Tuesday results that are being covered over here by Sky News on our TV Channels.
American football is worth watching. "American Football"? Yeah. That is what the whole of the rest of the world calls it. "Football" is what you lot quaintly call soccer.
Ah but I forgot. You can change the World. Barak Obama told us that in his Superbowl ad. You can make us call football "soccer". You have the military to ensure it.
Look, I know that people don’t set much store by words, particularly those said in elections. Yet, often they do reflect the underlying psyche that then translates into policy.
Obama could have chosen to end his ad with the inclusive: "Together the World can change the World". Or, more simply, "Together we can change the World". Instead it was "WE can change the World".
This is not empty hubris. Today, Bush brought forward his $3.1 trillion spending plan. Here on Dkos we will concentrate on the casualties of this plan, particularly Medicare and Medicaid. Neither we, nor Democratic politicians, will particularly focus on the vast military spending, except as a collateral argument to our main themes.
Why not? Because with the electorate, the hubris that still remains with the American people over their role in the World, despite five years of devasting war, demands the ability to support it with an obscenely large military. "We can change the World" is a statement pandering to this hubris. Bush and the GOP pander to it. Please, Barak Obama, don’t join them. It sends the wrong message to the electorate; it sends the wrong message to the rest of the World.
Wales thrashed England in another game involving a football on Saturday. It was magnificent. I don’t rate it above the Superbowl but the "hewl" here in the Principalty was immense.
We call this game "Rugby football", or "rugger" if your parents paid a fortune to send you to an exclusive school. This leaves the word "football" for the game that the rest of the world knows as football.
Thanks all of you for a great game of American football yesterday. I will be less testy by the end of the week. Hope that you take my point kindly, Mr Obama. And I hope Bush’s spending plans are seen by the American people as no more than what lame ducks are prone to leave on the grass in the field in which they are waddling.