As much as anyone, I appreciate the praise that is being heaped on our nation because of our recent electoral behavior. But at times it’s enough to make one blush – and wonder if it’s the same campaign I recall witnessing.
Magdalena Sroda of Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza says in part:
“There were no personal files abused, no insinuations from the secret service, no private mutual resentments, no mutual hatreds. If there were any, they were deeply and skillfully hidden. The campaign was essentially free of below-the-belt tricks and didn’t undercut the level of political debate. … In American politics – and from the Polish perspective this might seem quaint – what counts is competence, education, skill and the experience of people who work for the President, rather than their personal ambition and ability to deliver blows below the belt.”
By Magdalena ?roda
Translated By Halszka Czarnocka
November 6, 2008
Gazeta Wyborcza – Poland – Original Article (Polish)
I envy them their electoral emotions, hopes for reforming the administration of their government, the political culture and personalities of their candidates.
One could say that the campaign was shallow, the promises made were empty and that the candidates avoided substance, but it can also be argued that like the ancient Greeks, for whom politics was a great Agon [struggle ], elections for Americans are a battlefield of words where personalities clash free of party agendas and boring economic details. Neither of the candidates hired a Jacek Kurski to his staff [see below], so instead of a Wehrmacht grandfather, we were treated to a real grandma from Hawaii.
[Editor’s Note: Jacek Kurski, a Rove-like figure from PiS Party (the right-wing Law and Justice Party) who, in the heat of the Polish presidential election, accused President Kaczy?ski’s opponent, now-Prime Minister Donald Tusk, of being an ancestor of a man who had served in the German Army during World War II. Tusk hails from Kashubia, a minority region that was classified German during the Nazi occupation and was routinely drafted into the German military during the war.
The charge was especially insidious, since in reality Tusk’s grandfather seems to have escaped the German Army after a few months and probably joined the Polish Army exiled in the West, although the documents are murky. Whatever relevance one thinks a person’s grandfather has on a candidate’s political fitness, the charge may have cost Tusk the presidency].
READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, your most trusted translator and aggregator of foreign news about our nation.
