Jogging on the bog-eyed jog
(alternative title "What do you do with a drunken LibDem, earlie in the morning")
Update Congratulations to Matthew for correctly forecasting this column!
One of the great things about having a blog is that you don't have to pretend to give a fuck about the Liberal Democrats and one of the crap things about being a high-profile Times columnist is that you probably do. So I will forgive Aaro most of the laboured jokes which provide the necessary quota of sawdust in this week's sausage; it must have been a real fag to write the thing to deadline. And Aaro does appear to have nailed the purpose of Sir Menzies Campbell's candidature; politics as Lifetime (non)-Achievement Award, now fuck off and die with dignity grandad, and we will arrange for Simon Hughes' career to be buried alongside you. At sea.
So anyway, I will just confine myself this week to making moronic and unpleasant jokes at the expense of the major figures in this political human tragedy of our times (by the way, Sir Ming must presumably be a Campbell of that ilk, which is as good an excuse as any to suggest that it's a tatifilarious day to take a bus trip to out toCulloden Glencoe, rub your growling stomach and say "I could murder a McDonalds").
I do think it's a bit rich of Aaro to whine about how everyone covered up Wee Charlie's drink problem; he presumably knew about it too, so he could have told us himself, couldn't he? (I am assuming Aaro knew about it; I certainly did, and if I am "in the loop" whereas Dave is "out of the loop" then we both need to have a word with Professor Moebius about a sequel). I'll also note that while Charlie might have been "too drunk or post-drunk" to attend all sorts of important political events, I saw him on the stage in Hyde Park in March 2003 and he was standing up just fucking fine, thank you very much.
Anyway, the thing that amuses me is that, as Aaro pointed out with his encomium for Lord Pantsdown (fresh from "doing an excellent job to promote stable democracy", if that's how you spell "Preparing the ground for the Kosovar Albanians to start filming Srebenica 2: Payback's A Bitch" update I take this back, a bit, in comments), the Lib Dems have got quite the little local history with respect to humanitarian interventions. From Lord Owen of Split to Paddy, to Ming's own ghastly chunterings about international law, the LibDems have always been very, very overweight in Happy Shopper Talleyrands.
Which raises an idea in my mind; free for the asking if Nick wants it for a joke item. Just as the Americans tend to reward the architects of their military disasters with the Presidency of the World Bank (cf MacNamara, Wolfowitz), the Brits tend to reward third party leaders for long and pointless service with a tour of duty banging heads together in support of a comprehensively fucked up humanitarian intervention. And luckily, we have one just in time for Charlie's resignation. Lord Kennedy of Glenmorangie's Peace Plan for the Sunnis, anyone? It would even have the advantage that if we based him in Basrah or a similar town dominated by Sadr and the local branch of the Taliban, he wouldn't be able to get a drink.
Christ I'm a malicious little shitbubble this evening.
Update Congratulations to Matthew for correctly forecasting this column!
One of the great things about having a blog is that you don't have to pretend to give a fuck about the Liberal Democrats and one of the crap things about being a high-profile Times columnist is that you probably do. So I will forgive Aaro most of the laboured jokes which provide the necessary quota of sawdust in this week's sausage; it must have been a real fag to write the thing to deadline. And Aaro does appear to have nailed the purpose of Sir Menzies Campbell's candidature; politics as Lifetime (non)-Achievement Award, now fuck off and die with dignity grandad, and we will arrange for Simon Hughes' career to be buried alongside you. At sea.
So anyway, I will just confine myself this week to making moronic and unpleasant jokes at the expense of the major figures in this political human tragedy of our times (by the way, Sir Ming must presumably be a Campbell of that ilk, which is as good an excuse as any to suggest that it's a tatifilarious day to take a bus trip to out to
I do think it's a bit rich of Aaro to whine about how everyone covered up Wee Charlie's drink problem; he presumably knew about it too, so he could have told us himself, couldn't he? (I am assuming Aaro knew about it; I certainly did, and if I am "in the loop" whereas Dave is "out of the loop" then we both need to have a word with Professor Moebius about a sequel). I'll also note that while Charlie might have been "too drunk or post-drunk" to attend all sorts of important political events, I saw him on the stage in Hyde Park in March 2003 and he was standing up just fucking fine, thank you very much.
Anyway, the thing that amuses me is that, as Aaro pointed out with his encomium for Lord Pantsdown (fresh from "doing an excellent job to promote stable democracy", if that's how you spell "Preparing the ground for the Kosovar Albanians to start filming Srebenica 2: Payback's A Bitch" update I take this back, a bit, in comments), the Lib Dems have got quite the little local history with respect to humanitarian interventions. From Lord Owen of Split to Paddy, to Ming's own ghastly chunterings about international law, the LibDems have always been very, very overweight in Happy Shopper Talleyrands.
Which raises an idea in my mind; free for the asking if Nick wants it for a joke item. Just as the Americans tend to reward the architects of their military disasters with the Presidency of the World Bank (cf MacNamara, Wolfowitz), the Brits tend to reward third party leaders for long and pointless service with a tour of duty banging heads together in support of a comprehensively fucked up humanitarian intervention. And luckily, we have one just in time for Charlie's resignation. Lord Kennedy of Glenmorangie's Peace Plan for the Sunnis, anyone? It would even have the advantage that if we based him in Basrah or a similar town dominated by Sadr and the local branch of the Taliban, he wouldn't be able to get a drink.
Christ I'm a malicious little shitbubble this evening.
posted by The Rioja Kid at 1/10/2006 12:42:00 AM
7 Comments:
bonus content which even I thought was too fucking nasty for the front page; I can think of one other person in Aaro's ambit who has been smeared as a drunk recently (by Private Eye, also here); starts with N, ends with K, rhymes with Nick.
As the example of this (as far as I can tell baseless, and I have spent a bit of time looking) slur shows, it is all too easy to sling mud at anyone who is not a total abstainer and hope some of it will stick. I for one don't blame anyone in the Lib Dems who had their suspicions but decided to keep their gobs shut on the issue because it really is rather terrible behaviour to call another man a drunk.
Well said Bruschetta boy. As you say, Pantsdown's achievement is to re-create the conditions that led to war in the 1st place. He even gave a eulogy at Izetbegovic's funeral, describing him as the "father of his country". So how come the majority of Bosnians (ie. Croats + Serbs) don't believe in Bosnian sovereignty?
Pantsdown is a failure both inside and outside of Britain. No wonder he is Aaro's hero.
actually it is really extremely unfair of me to blame Ashdown for the Fred Karno's in Kosovo (which he has never been in charge of and it would probably be better if he had), and I would like to make it clear right up front that partisans of the Bosnian Serbs will be kept on a very short leash indeed on this comments board.
I don't think that the situation in Bosnia is either particularly stable or particularly democratic, but at least they're not killing each other right at this minute. I don't understand why you've got such a scunner against Izetbegovic; he strikes me as a basically decent man playing an impossible wicket, and I think that the attempts to link him to the Bosnian Muslim war crimes have been pretty weak (mind you I also think that the attempts to link MIlosevic to Bosnian Serb war crimes have not been particularly compelling so maybe I operate a high standard of proof).
Where's my congratulations for winning the D.A. forecast competition? Or wasn't it accurate enough?
fucking hell I didn't notice that one!
Bruschetta Boy:
This is your website and you set the rules. I am perplexed, however, by your rather bitchy reply to my post. Is this Aaro watch or the Anti-Bosnian Serb Tendency of Aarowatch? I assumed that you were above factionalising the broad church of Aaro Watchers with witchhunts.
I have spent countless hours arguing about the causes of the Bosnian war. I happen to believe that Izetbegovic, like most Bosnian politicians, was a calculating slimeball but that is beside the point. Bosnian Croats and Serbs, who make up the majority of Bosnia's citizens, will tell you that Izetbegovic is the son and mother of many things, but not their father. So what does this tell us about Pantsdown's political judgment? He and Aaronovitch deserve each other.
My real fantasy, however, is to dress up Aaro in all that useless US armour that wouldn't save you from a pop-gun (assuming you could find a size large enough to fit him) and parachute him along with leaflets of his bogus apologies for the war into "liberated" Fallujah.
Good night.
The Campbells did over the McDonalds at Glencoe, not Culloden.
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