10 posts tagged “president”

From France 2, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy got a much better reception in the UK than in France. A nice summary of the very packed two days for the Sarkozys, with an emphasis on the First Lady. The kiss in the segment is a nice, romantic finalé to the piece.

This video, from the Élysée, was taken yesterday when the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, and the First Lady arrived in London to meet HM Queen Elizabeth II and HH the Duke of Edinburgh. I wrote in a comment on Timothy’s Vox blog, after reading an article about it, that Mme Sarkozy did not know where to stand and tried to follow her husband and the Queen on the inspection. I was wrong: looking at this video, the First Lady knew exactly where to go and accompanied Prince Philip in her meet-and-greet. The Jacqueline Kennedy comparisons aren’t invalid.
   And it seems the newly hyphenated Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is on her way to being the most photographed woman of 2008: her image sells political, fashion (she’s wearing Dior by John Galliano) and gossip media.

The Psychic Twins had predicted that Hillary Clinton would be the US’s next president, but I like those whacky predictions that come from left field. Here’s one I read today from 2006 (spelling errors in the original):

As we begin to prepare for the 2008 election, a woman appears from an unsuspected source as a major contender for US President. Hillary Clinton will not be on the 2008 ballot because of a physical impairment - she may have an illness or be in a serious car accident. Tom DeLay will go to jail and Karl Rove will be forced out of his job. (Look for Nancy Pelosi to run for Vice-President in 2008.) Keep an eye on Condeliza Rice, she will shine in this area and may choose to run for Vice-President.

   Pelosi? Rice? Clinton not on the ballot?
   If this comes to pass, I’ll have to admit there is something to these.

Carla Bruni on the cover of Point de Vue

Carla Bruni has been romantically linked to French president Nicolas Sarkozy, according to Point de Vue magazine in France. The cover headline reads (translated), ‘Carla Bruni: the woman in the President’s heart.’ The magazine launches tomorrow (December 19) and contributes to the largely positive press M. Sarkozy has been receiving since his election. (More at the Lucire Insider blog today.)

Hillary Clinton has upset over the anti-Obama comments made by one of her reps.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iviufLueJCRqiUapUAxXQ3yACUqAD8THFBOG0

So he’s gone from her campaign.
   There are two interpretations:

• if you mess with Hillary over expressing your own free will, then the Patriot Act is going to look like a walk in the park;
• Barack Obama is her choice for running-mate. So leave the man alone.

   And a Clinton–Obama ticket is going to be hard to beat in marketing terms because both candidates have had a huge MSM build-up.
   Who does the GOP have? Romney–Huckabee? Now that I say it, it sounds pretty good, but it also sounds like it belongs to an episode of Bewitched as a rival agency to McMahon & Tate. Damn, Obama is just an exotic surname in an age of internationalism. A marketer’s dream.
   Thompson and another yet-to-emerge Law & Order cast member? Somehow, I think we won’t see FDT in the vernacular with Fred polling so low in New Hampshire—except maybe as a typo when someone is trying to type FDR.
   Giuliani and someone that the Democrats will rip into? McCain and … um … well, heck, just McCain?
   We are talking a lot of lost ground in terms of publicity here for the Republican Party. It needs to wake up and stand united, and with someone very, very credible that will beat the Democrats on substance—then brand it all correctly.

Congratulations, Team New Zealand, on an exciting fourth race. It looked pretty hairy going into the first leg, with Prada leading for a good part of it. But with each mark, Dean and the Kiwis stayed their course, increased their lead and sailed home to a fourth victory in the Louis Vuitton Cup. Looks like Russell Coutts’ prediction of a Kiwi victory in the first-to-five challenge is coming true.
   Switching over to catch what President Bush is saying in Praha.

I began logging some of my predictions at Facebook for fun. My first was that Nicolas Sarkozy would win the French presidential election, which has come to pass.
   I have had no major 9-11-type events, just little, trivial things. I dreamt that the French president was a woman in a dream over a month ago, and since my dreams are never literal, I concluded that it would be Sarkozy. Unfortunately, by the time I logged the prediction, it was becoming clear, after the first round, that Sarkozy would pip Ségo.
   The group is just for fun, though if we start getting a better-than-average score, then we might have to admit to having some abilities.

[Cross-posted] As we watch the tributes flow in for the late former Russian president Boris Yeltsin, the article that seems to be best balanced that I have encountered so far is from the Associated Press. It is not for me to speak in depth of Mr Yeltsin, as I only know of his image—outside Russia, it was often congenial, but more often confusing. I might not have agreed totally with his approach, but he led at a difficult time. I hope his passing yesterday helps the Russian people create dialogue, learning and understanding that they can apply to their collective future as world citizens. The fact we can even consider them, and so many former Soviet republics, our neighbours on this planet is, perhaps, due in some great respect to Mr Yeltsin.

When I think about my career with fingers in different pies, it’s not that unusual. Sen. Fred Dalton Thompson of Tennessee, whom Americans will know from Law & Order and whom most of us foreigners know from Die Hard 2, could hold down representing his state and plain representin’ on TV and film.
   I kept saying that Republicans might find a candidate who is well known. Could it be Mr Thompson? More people have seen him than Sen. McCain. Only former mayor Giuliani has a higher profile.
   But all these guys do not have much hair.
   Americans always have trouble voting for someone who has less hair than his opponent, whether for a presidential, senatorial or congressional race (there are some exceptions, of course). You can be black or female, just not bald.
   “Hat tip” to Dox² for the video below.

A while back, I found a blog linked at NZBC that pretended to be written by Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Here on Vox is one by George W. Bush. You’ll need to realize it’s all tongue-in-cheek, though it didn’t stop some folks from writing comments as though they took it seriously.
   Remember, Dubya was hassled in ’78 by his Democratic congressional opponent for being too smart, so I’m pretty sure a guy with a master’s degree out of Harvard (Harvard then, not now) can write better than the Vox dude. The scary thought is that that really is the presidential blog.