Blast from the past. In a good way.

I'm admittedly a late comer to this band. But RP is slowly turning me into a Snow Patrol fan.

Errr - you do know that this is a MUSIC message board????

Koan and Horstman:

Bush II is not a 'country boy'.  He is about as rich and spoiled as they get, witness some of the expensive, bad self-medication habits he developed prior to being 're-born'.

Bush II has the Messiah Complex and is willing to cater to just about every wealth-destroying special interest group that comes knocking in order to achieve his goals.

There is an interesting comparison to be made with Canada's former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.  One of Canada's most successful prime ministers in recent memory, he came from modest beginnings, a large Roman Catholic family in a small, forest industry town called Shawinigan Falls.

Chrétien had a reputation as a street brawler.  He once severly choked a demonstrator that got too close.  He served for years under the charismatic and very public intellectual former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.  Chrétien was viewed as a highly effective cabinet minister.

Chrétien spoke lousy English and even worse French.  He was the little guy from Shawinigan Falls.  The image was 100% home-spun populist.  He was charming and self-deprecating.  He may not have been as imaginative as other quebecois intellectuals of his era but anybody who knew him understood that his mind was one the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Chrétien believed in talking to people and co-opting them into win-win arrangements.  The discourse for quebecois nationalists was sometimes tough and uncompromising but outside of the limelight he was willing to make significant concessions.

Trudeau, Chrétien and company were all Canadian federalists but proud to be québécois and in the tradition of a once colonized people, anti-militarist, suspicious of all imperial powers, and fiercely multi-lateralist (e.g., pro-NATO, pro-UN). Chrétien tamed Canada's galloping deficit/debt situation in the mid-1990s by slashing defence expenditures following the collapse of the Soviet Union and a number of high profile scandals (as well as less publicized high-level corruption).

Chrétien kept Canada forrmally out of Iraq, and suffered much wrath at the time for this decision.  In this respect, he was a much better friend and ally to the USA than others who should have known better (Great Britain, Israel) but kept silent or encouraged the folly. Canada has been running solid fiscal surpluses continuously since the mid-1990s.

Funny how the styles of the two leaders, Pres. Bush, Jr., and former Prime Minister Chrétien, are in some respects so similar but the policy outcomes are so different.

The current prime minister Stephen Harper taps into a different constituency that is much more comfortable with the aerial bombing of ordinary civilians and the use of military might to take resources in the Middle East.

Koan and Horstman:

Bush II is not a 'country boy'.  He is about as rich and spoiled as they get, witness some of the expensive, bad self-medication habits he developed prior to being 're-born'.

Bush II has the Messiah Complex and is willing to cater to just about every wealth-destroying special interest group that comes knocking in order to achieve his goals.

There is an interesting comparison to be made with Canada's former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien.  One of Canada's most successful prime ministers in recent memory, he came from modest beginnings, a large Roman Catholic family in a small, forest industry town called Shawinigan Falls.

Chrétien had a reputation as a street brawler.  He once severly choked a demonstrator that got too close.  He served for years under the charismatic and very public intellectual former prime minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau.  Chrétien was viewed as a highly effective cabinet minister.

Chrétien spoke lousy English and even worse French.  He was the little guy from Shawinigan Falls.  The image was 100% home-spun populist.  He was charming and self-deprecating.  He may not have been as imaginative as other quebecois intellectuals of his era but anybody who knew him understood that his mind was one the sharpest knives in the drawer.

Chrétien believed in talking to people and co-opting them into win-win arrangements.  The discourse for quebecois nationalists was sometimes tough and uncompromising but outside of the limelight he was willing to make significant concessions.

Trudeau, Chrétien and company were all Canadian federalists but proud to be québécois and in the tradition of a once colonized people, anti-militarist, suspicious of all imperial powers, and fiercely multi-lateralist (e.g., pro-NATO, pro-UN). Chrétien tamed Canada's galloping deficit/debt situation in the mid-1990s by slashing defence expenditures following the collapse of the Soviet Union and a number of high profile scandals (as well as less publicized high-level corruption).

Chrétien kept Canada forrmally out of Iraq, and suffered much wrath at the time for this decision.  In this respect, he was a much better friend and ally to the USA than others who should have known better (Great Britain, Israel) but kept silent or encouraged the folly. Canada has been running solid fiscal surpluses continuously since the mid-1990s.

Funny how the styles of the two leaders, Pres. Bush, Jr., and former Prime Minister Chrétien, are in some respects so similar but the policy outcomes are so different.

The current prime minister Stephen Harper taps into a different constituency that is much more comfortable with the aerial bombing of ordinary civilians and the use of military might to take resources in the Middle East.

Doesn't 'country' really only represent *parts* of the United States of America?

You could just as much claim other musical forms born in your country as its signature, like jazz or blues or soul/r&b. I'd probably feel better about all our futures if you did. The country boy in charge of your country scares me.