A Different Point of View on Politics

Sometimes you have to see things from a different perspective to fully understand them. That's why I'm grateful to this journalist from Minsk, Belarus, for an outsider's take on the American presidential race:

From Belaruskija Naviny (translated by
the Belarus Information Agency):
Minsk (BIA) 1 February, 2008-- In America,
there are not strong leaders like Aleksandr Grigorevich Lukashenko, who come
into power, and stay in the power. The only president in American history
to have held on his power more than two terms was Franklin Roosevelt. And
he was cripple! He stayed long because of war-time situation, not
strength.
But every four years, the parties make their best effort.
This year, because of failed war in Iraq and weak leadership of George W. Bush,
the American people are going in for politics like never before in their
history. Participation in the political life of the country is up 32% from
its historic low in 2004. This upswing is most notable among the young-people of
America, many of whom have at long last removed their walkman headphones to
"tune in" to their nation's future.
What choices are the Republican
and Democratic parties offering them?At this present, the Republican ("Grand
Old") Party has three candidates in competition: the Christian retail-store
magnate and "healthy life-style" advocate Mike Huckabee, whose business
practices were subjected to critique already in American independent cinema
production "I Heart Huckabee" (2005); Mitt Romney, governor of State Utah and
elder of Mormon church, which until Lukashenko's bold measure against foreign
missionary-activity was responsible for the common sight on the streets of
Grodno and Brest and Vitebsk of clean and polite young Americans, speaking
Belarusian like mother tongue, and promoting their heretical sect to our
villagers like we were pagan Indians; and finally, John McCain, senator of City
Phoenix and number-one opponent of current president George W. Bush within
Republican party.
The Democrats have now only two candidates who stand to
chance against this powerful phalanx: Barack Obama, senator of City Chicago and
nephew of Saddam Hussein; and Hillary Rodham Clinton, organizer of popular
solidarity-building women's breakfasts for discussion of hair-hygiene and of
place of woman in American politics, and only official wife of number-one enemy
of Serbs and all Slavic peoples, Bill Clinton.