can't you see / its a game that's laid on your brothers / by some others

After the fracas in New Zealand politics in recent months, Alexander Downer’s incredible toadying act this week (the photograph at the link is amazing and deserves a new caption...I just can’t think of one right now), and all the nonsense of the recent past in the US of A, I still find myself surprised how deluded those in positions of power are. And that still surprises me. I guess I still have an implicit, subconscious belief, driven into me as a boy at primary school in the sixties, by the media, the education system, with its raising of the flag every AM, and the generations that preceded mine, in the judgement and righteous intentions of those that lead us or those that are chosen by our elected officials to lead us. Vietnam killed that of course, oh, and Watergate. But, for my generation the germ of that idea is still there somewhere in the back of our minds.

My grandfather, a Maori Land Court Judge, was a good man, who’d fought in Italy and North Africa, had a Toby Jug of Monty on his mantelpiece…my parents have it now in a slightly less prominent position. He believed in the same general goodness that inspired the United Nations and tagged Mr Holyoake “Kiwi Keith”. I stood and watched LBJ drive through Wellington (my dad was the NZ Military Liaison on the trip, and I even managed a tour, at Ohakea, through Air Force One) when he was here to thank Kiwi Keith for pushing our young lads into harm’s way to prevent that damned, inevitable domino effect if the commies ever took Saigon. I was young and I waved a flag.

So forward thirty or forty years and nothing changes, except that we expect, if we think about it clearly, that our leaders, and those who lead our ‘free world’, will lie to us, as often as not, not because they want to, but simply because they are utterly deluded. The world they inhabit is a fantasy. If one needs any real evidence of this delusion, witness Tommy Frank’s quite bizarre new project The General Tommy Franks Leadership Institute and Museum. This, from a man who failed to pursue Osama when he had the chance, and made, whether you agree with it or not, an absolute dogs breakfast of the US invasion of Iraq. A man who famously once said, implying that he, as a General, was probably better suited to being a Corporal:

"No one was more surprised than I that we didn't find (WMD's)”.

Look, you can contribute to his institute if you want, unless you’re one of those dead-enders of course….Quick, give this man a Toby Jug contract and tell him to go where all old (failed) soldiers go….

Then we have the most deluded man on the planet, apart, perhaps from those that still buy into the simpleton approach and the stream utter garbage that dribbles daily from his mouth and that of his spokesperson. I give you The Leader of the Free World. The leader, who was once in such a hurry to invade Iraq, so much so that he couldn’t wait for any resolution to the issue that didn’t involve an invasion.

Now of course, on a day that another 55 deaths, that we know of, are announced in the Baghdad area, he is willing to wait until he offers any solutions. Perhaps until after his upcoming holiday, or because he is, wait for it, this is incredible, to quote an administration official :

"factoring in the college football championship game on January 8 in its determination of scheduling. “

There is, of course no hurry because the enemy is far from being defeated. The again when you have people like Tommy Franks and Alexander Downer rooting for your side, you don’t have a lot to worry about. There have been plenty of people over the years that have asserted that Bush is not some deluded idiot, but rather a rather crafty tactician. The evidence right now would suggest otherwise.