Spoilt for choice.

It’ll soon be time for America to choose a new President, and boy howdy, could they make it difficult for the rest of us. The man currently calling the big White House his home has, regrettably, underwhelmed in his first term. It isn’t necessarily his fault, but for one reason or another (often Republicans in Congress who refuse to co-operate regardless of the matter being discussed or voted on, or whatever it is they do there, simply to oppose for the sake of opposition) his approval rating is falling. Many of the things he has accomplished have been compromised drastically from the initial proposition, most notably the universal health care thing. Even compromised as it is, Republicans are determined to reverse it. The general lack of effectiveness isn’t enough to prevent Obama’s policies slowly reducing unemployment, gradually moving the economy in what is generally agreed to be the right direction. Perhaps if there wasn’t this need to compromise with belligerent petty opposition on every issue, he might have done better. Of course, that would resemble something approaching communism, and our friends in the United States know that would be a Very Bad Thing. Many Republicans may not know exactly what communism is, but they know it’s bad.

Obama has been called, as well as foreigner and the most dangerous President America has ever had (really, Gingrich?), a socialist, communist and Nazi, as if the three are completely interchangeable. He’s not a socialist, although frankly, if he was a little more left-leaning, it might not be a bad thing (although I can’t imagine what names they’d find for him then). As to communism or Nazism, apart from the fact that, on a political scale the two things are polar extremes, to any sensible person he’s clearly neither. You can tell that, because all the rich people are still allowed to get richer regardless of the huge number of people living in the direst poverty, and on the other side, there are no groups of people being forced to wear yellow stars.

Nevertheless, for one reason or another, there is a real chance the Republicans could take the Presidency from him soon. So, who might take it? Surely none of them could be as demented as Bush or Palin, right? Well. There’s Mitt Romney, a Mormon with a track record of destroying American businesses and sending the jobs overseas for ridiculous profits. They kind of guy who posthumously converts atheist loved ones to his religion (which, as religions go, really is one of the dumbest ones). Or there’s Newt Gingrich, who has promised America the first permanent Moon base. This is one of his least crazy ideas. To be honest, that would be kind of awesome, if it weren’t for his desperate need to start wars. And then there is Rick Santorum, the guy with the Google problem. The guy waging wars on homosexuality and women. The guy who thinks a woman who gets pregnant following a rape should be forced to have the baby and consider it a gift from god. There is Ron Paul, who is almost half way sensible, but for the possibility he’s an awful racist. Unfortunately, making the most sense puts him a distant fourth in the race and not really in contention.

So. Um, good luck with that America. Do the rest of the world a favour, and do your best to keep the ineffective, dangerous foreign communist Nazi in power, because one of the others could really cause some trouble.