Skip to main content

TRUMP UPS THE STAKES

Donald Trump is usually wrong in his manner and his statements, goes the thinking of most British people - and he may well be. However last night in the widely-televised Republican Presidential candidates debate in South Carolina, Mr Trump, no stranger to stating shocking things, made two comments that, at least to the ears of left-leaning Corbynistas, will sound familiar.

Mr Trump claimed that Mr GW Bush had lied and that the recent Iraq War was wrong - and also that under Mr Bush, America had not become safer. That is like a Democrat saying Obamacare is rubbish, or Clinton should have been impeached.

It just isn't done. So that was amazing and intriguing.

The debate was also worth watching to see Mr Jeb Bush rise to the occasion, and come out confident and strong. Mr Kasich would be a compelling candidate if he had a chance - a smart, and nuanced moderate, his ideas seem more suited to compromise than the current culture wars warrant.

Mr Rubio stated - always dapper and acute - perhaps incorrectly - that the US Constitution is not "a living breathing thing" - but set in stone. If so, how does he explain amendments, and the fact that time changes, and so new discoveries and issues arise, that may not have been foreseen by the admittedly wise founding fathers? Originalists, like the recently-deceased Justice Scalia (the most reviled of the remaining conservatives on the bench), tend to see everything through prose-coloured glasses.

Meanwhile, all contender claimed Mr Obama has no right to submit a name to replace Scalia, though he has 11 more months in office - as if his Presidency had abruptly stopped just when it might have the power to discomfit right-wingers. Not so. One theory is he could appoint himself, or wait for Mrs Clinton to appoint him if she wins the Presidency in November.

Likely Mr Cruz, Trump or Bush will be the nominee to beat Mr Sanders or Clinton, and both have a shot, given the current issues facing the land.

We predict that in the SC primary forthcoming, Cruz will come in first, Trump a close second, Bush third, Rubio 4th, Kasich 5th and Dr Carson, the strange soft-spoken surgeon, last - we then predict Carson will drop out, but the other 5 remaining candidates will try and stay in for Super Tuesday.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

CLIVE WILMER'S THOM GUNN SELECTED POEMS IS A MUST-READ

THAT HANDSOME MAN  A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought.  Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

When you open your mouth to speak, are you smart?  A funny question from a great song, but also, a good one, when it comes to poets, and poetry. We tend to have a very ambiguous view of intelligence in poetry, one that I'd say is dysfunctional.  Basically, it goes like this: once you are safely dead, it no longer matters how smart you were.  For instance, Auden was smarter than Yeats , but most would still say Yeats is the finer poet; Eliot is clearly highly intelligent, but how much of Larkin 's work required a high IQ?  Meanwhile, poets while alive tend to be celebrated if they are deemed intelligent: Anne Carson, Geoffrey Hill , and Jorie Graham , are all, clearly, very intelligent people, aside from their work as poets.  But who reads Marianne Moore now, or Robert Lowell , smart poets? Or, Pound ?  How smart could Pound be with his madcap views? Less intelligent poets are often more popular.  John Betjeman was not a very smart poet, per se.  What do I mean by smart?

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and  Silence of the Lambs .  I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".