The Republican Choices for American President - as seen from Europe

I have not been that impressed with Obama. About the one thing that sounds slightly positive about him is that at least he is not Bush. Oh, and the leading Islamofascist, Bin Laden, was killed on his watch.

That is really about it. There will be no Iraq in his legacy, and no maintaining principle for the sake of it, even when the principle is as ludicrous and as cock-eyed as it gets.

But his achievements at home seem minimal (yes, he did inherit a crisis, but the solution was never clearly thought out, and about the only reasoning behind it is that things could have been even worse - logically that may be correct, but ....). Internationally he has not been that easily spotted. Unlike Bush and all his faux pas committed on foreign soil, Obama has rarely been seen.

The world is a safer place? I wouldn't know about that. Economically the decline continues for most of us, and really what is needed is a serious upturn, not the prevention of decline.

So would we get this from President Bachman, Perry, Palin, Pawlenty, Romney? Excuse me while I break into hysterical laughter at the thought.

What we would get would be the same as we got from Bush (substitute Iran for Iraq, have a war there for starters, fascinating that the USA may be broke, but it can always borrow tons more money to start an aggressive war somewhere) - praying to a God (who is Christian, maybe Jewish, but definitely not Muslim. Hindu and other South and East Asian Gods do not qualify, and in Romney's case work out whether this God is quite the same as with the others) to get all the answers.

Back to WW1 where both sides were praying to the same God for support. You ought to be surprised that after WW1 anyone in Germany and Austria continued to believe in this deity that deceived them and let them lose!

Economically would they solve the problems that they have created for themselves? As I happen to believe that the only way out is the recreation of the industrial base producing quality goods while paying at least a living wage (and breaking the insidious debt culture) .... It will not happen either in the USA or in Europe, so in that respect whoever is picked is irrelevant.

The only interesting candidate is Ron Paul, who would shake the whole thing up entirely, and would at least stop embracing the militaristic foreign policy that the others would adopt.

Whether his economic platform would work in principle remains an open question though. The whole platform upon which things work now would be shaken to the rafters. Whether this could work in practice is an open question.

And probably is not really worth considering anyway, as the GOP establishment would go out of its way not to support him, as he stands so much against what they have represented for years.

As for the new favourite, a President Bachman sounds like that her first priority would be to set out a policy to cure homosexuality. The prospect that Americans would elect someone fighting for that argument as any sort of priority, probably indicates just how tired, stale and utterly stupid the whole process has become. Sadly.