One of the major Leftist gripes du jour would have to be the clamp down on dissidents in Tibet and China in general. With rage, even many in the Right are wondering why we ever chose to hold the Games there and we all hope faintly that this action may precipitate some sort of change there. I recall there was a time in which the East was slightly more relaxed and open minded regarding differing views. No, I’m not talking about Jiang Zemin or even Mao; you’ll have to go back much further.

The story goes that the great Kublai Khan entreated Marco Polo to convince him of the merits of Catholicism. He challenged him to bring him back 100 Catholic priests to argue their case and if they could convince them, the Mongol Empire would convert. Proselytizers would salivate given this opportunity today and lament the opportunity long lost.

What a sorry state the Vatican was in at the time. Polo arrived home to a divided church, in which the Papal chair had been vacant for three years. The bitter disagreement between French and Italian Cardinals had produced the longest impasse in Papal history. They were too interested in arguing over who should be the Pope at the time to care about something as insignificant as China.

When the new Pope finally ascended, his response to Khan was nothing short of abysmal by modern evangelical standards. A mere two friars were sent, who became discouraged half way there and turned back home. The whole Christian world has the rest of history to lament such foolish inaction.

Enter 2008 and the last thing the world needs right now is more conservatism. More wars, more rascism, more xenophobia and even less action on climate change seemed to be recurring themes in conservative circles over the last few years. The Australian political landscape was ripe for harvest for a Centrist/Leftist government like Kevin Rudd as people started to wise up to the follies of Bush and Howard. However, our moderate American colleagues appear to be to busy, arrogantly fighting for power.

Current news indicates that Hillary should just give it up for Obama. Even if she does, the damage will have already been done. She has practically said everything and anything (true or false) to discredit Obama, whilst McCain can just sit back and laugh.

There are some serious issues up ahead in American politics. Take the war in Iraq or a possible war with Iran. It’s an interesting side note that in the First Gulf War, 17% of the casualties and injuries were due to friendly fire: far higher than any other major US military action.

The lesson is the same for Liberals all across Australia. We could use a decent opposition and perhaps even a Coalition government in some of our states. As the Libs keep fighting amongst themselves, scandal after scandal goes through to the keeper and the Premiers are as Teflon-coated as ever. I’d venture to say that many in NSW would only vote Liberal because they hated Iemma, not because they actually liked the Coalition.

Without question, we are seeing unprecedented levels of friendly fire from the Clinton wing of the Democratic Party in this US Presidential election campaign. Let’s just hope the wounds aren’t fatal for Obama.

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