Jim Edgar and the Presidency
Few outside of Illinois know about Jim Edgar.
But if he runs for governor in 2006 and wins, he could be quite a formidable 2008 Presidential candidate.
As a moderate Republican, he could be place himself as the younger and even tempered McCain.
That's if he decides to run for governor, and wins.
UPDATE: And he decided not to run.
But if he runs for governor in 2006 and wins, he could be quite a formidable 2008 Presidential candidate.
As a moderate Republican, he could be place himself as the younger and even tempered McCain.
That's if he decides to run for governor, and wins.
UPDATE: And he decided not to run.
posted by Charles Malik at 3:56 AM
2 Comments:
hello!
In response to your comment elsewhere:
My dear Mr. Malik,
You are of course right. And you do, I hope, realize that yesterday was a day of blackness and temporary fury. There is a good reason why people like myself take part in the discourse, but are not part of the diplomatic corps.
As far as what the Arab world should do, I really have no suggestions beyond a few specific things. You've no doubt already heard them, enough so that you doubtless need no further chanting of those tropes.
Now, regarding your somewhat surprising statement that the Arab world is NOT diverse - surely you mean that only in the political sense? Given the range of "Arab" ethnicities and subcultures (from Somali 'Arab' through Hijazi and Levantine all the way to extremes in Afghanistan who call themselves Arab, and North-Africans of an entire range of demi-Arabicity), with attendant dialect and linguistic variety, the political spectrum is perhaps the only way in which to read that statement.
I could make the argument, from well within Western Culture, that the western world at present shows less diversity than the Arab world. Other than fury at the 'West', what do a Yemeni and, for instance, a Druze from Lebanon, really have in common? Language? Barely - even in standard English, the individual command of English leads to misunderstanding, despite what must seem near-identical phrasing and vocabulary. How much more so over the Arabic of the street.
We don't take kindly to being stereotyped, and we enjoy being ourselves without others telling us what we should be doing.
Are you sure you're not American? That precisely is the gist of my frequent poison-penmanship about our European friends.
You might, if so inclined, take a gander at some of the criticism I aim at my 'fellow Dutch-speakers'. As good a place to start as any is here:
http://atthebackofthehill.blogspot.com/search/label/Rottekaas
Which will bring up everything labeled 'Rottekaas' - a less than affectionate term for my own cultural group (in the broad sense). Bear in mind that pretty much everything under that label is intramural venom - and is therefore informed by bitter disappointment about the one group I truly had hoped would have higher standards.
It makes for toxic reading. And might not appeal to everybody.
[Note to other readers: I posted this here in the hope that Mr. Malik would receive notification by e-mail of my response. It is, necessarily, unrelated to 'Jim Edgar and the Presidency'. Please accept my apologies for the non-sequitoriality.]
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