Distinguished Visitation
So I woke up at a quarter past eight, for the third time (or perhaps the fourth) this morning. I shot myself up with coffee, black and unvarnished as a chunk of ebony. Then I sat back and waited for the customers.
The first thought to enter my brain was, "Is Obama going to win the Democratic presidential nomination and will he be the next US President?" Not a surprise, that one. It's been a frequent visitor. But why Obama, and not Clinton or McCain?
There is a fairly good reason, as reasons go. Kishore Mahbubani, now Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and once Singapore's ambassador to the UN, offers an unusual one. Mr Mahbubani tends to love his neat little patterns a lot, so for him the three candidates can be neatly placed into a past-present-future model. I'm sure you could guess which candidate fit where without reading the whole thing. Mr M got a couple of details wrong; he tends to leave out the fragments that don't fit, but he is otherwise lucid and entertaining.
Well, a morning visit from the Ghosts of US Presidential Elections Past, Present and Future is nothing to be sniffed at. I wasn't taking it sitting down. So I stood up and went for a long walk.
By the time I got back, I was still mulling over the Mahbubani piece. The important question for anybody else in the world is, "Which candidate is likely to benefit us the most?" In Southeast Asia, a mixture of Muslim and Communist and Secular Pseudo-Democratic and Catholic and Mindless Dictatorial nations, this isn't likely to have a unanimous answer. Even in 'tiny red dot' Singapore, the Old Man said 'McCain' while Kishore says 'Obama'.
Why? The Old Man had McCain as the pragmatic realist, while Obama is too much a man of the uncertain future. But the most likely thing about the future (besides the fact of it not having happened yet) is that it will be uncertain and surprising. Best then, as far as I can see, to pick the most flexible of the lot. So Obama it is.
The first thought to enter my brain was, "Is Obama going to win the Democratic presidential nomination and will he be the next US President?" Not a surprise, that one. It's been a frequent visitor. But why Obama, and not Clinton or McCain?
There is a fairly good reason, as reasons go. Kishore Mahbubani, now Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and once Singapore's ambassador to the UN, offers an unusual one. Mr Mahbubani tends to love his neat little patterns a lot, so for him the three candidates can be neatly placed into a past-present-future model. I'm sure you could guess which candidate fit where without reading the whole thing. Mr M got a couple of details wrong; he tends to leave out the fragments that don't fit, but he is otherwise lucid and entertaining.
Well, a morning visit from the Ghosts of US Presidential Elections Past, Present and Future is nothing to be sniffed at. I wasn't taking it sitting down. So I stood up and went for a long walk.
By the time I got back, I was still mulling over the Mahbubani piece. The important question for anybody else in the world is, "Which candidate is likely to benefit us the most?" In Southeast Asia, a mixture of Muslim and Communist and Secular Pseudo-Democratic and Catholic and Mindless Dictatorial nations, this isn't likely to have a unanimous answer. Even in 'tiny red dot' Singapore, the Old Man said 'McCain' while Kishore says 'Obama'.
Why? The Old Man had McCain as the pragmatic realist, while Obama is too much a man of the uncertain future. But the most likely thing about the future (besides the fact of it not having happened yet) is that it will be uncertain and surprising. Best then, as far as I can see, to pick the most flexible of the lot. So Obama it is.
etched with acid at 9:53:00 pm
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