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Comment by Overtonwindow | Hacker News Reader

Perhaps not politically correct, but I absolutely love it when politicians loudly declare they will NOT resign, only to resign the follow day or two.

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Earlier today the prime minister actually first tried to get the president to dissolve the parliament (as some kind of retaliation?), but apparently the president refused. As I understand it, this is the first time in Icelandic history that the president refuses to dissolve the parliament when asked to by the prime minister. Maybe someone here from Iceland knows...

Yes, he was trying to retaliate against his own party for not supporting him. The president wasn't ready to approve the request without at least first talking to the leader of the other coalition party to see if they were in agreement.

http://www.visir.is/forseti-neitar-sigmundi-um-heimild-til-t...

And now it seems the former PM is accusing the president of lying..

http://www.visir.is/sigmundur-david-segir-forsetann-hafa-sag...

I'm pretty sure what happened is that he wanted the approval to dissolve the parliament, and then would then wave this authorization in the face of the other coalition party as a way to blackmail them for support.

It sounds like that Icelandic PM is a complete jerk who deserves everything that has happened to him. Obviously not putting the country first.

Yes, this is unprecedented but allowed for by the constitution. What you need to understand about the Icelandic Constitution is that it's mostly a translation from the Danish one from 1944 with patchwork reforms here and there, substituting Monarch for President. The Danish Monarchy is a figurehead not intended for much besides being a symbol of national unity. Much of the powers that the Constitution seems to grant has been interpreted to be in a similar vein to the Danish arrangements, in name only. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson has been an activist president, interpreting his role more participatory than his predecessors.

The "activist" president description is quite biased, you could just as well say that he's the first president who's been using powers legally and unambiguously granted to him by the constitution.

I for one much prefer the rule of law to the vague rule of convention by "nobody did that before so he shouldn't".

Now if people don't agree with his use of his presidential powers the right thing to do is change the constitution, not complain about ÓRG following the law and his constitutional mandate.

Activist in the sense that nobody did it before. It was not meant to speak to motives or propriety.

I understand "activist" in this context to be something closer to "interpreting the law in some unusual way nobody could have thought of when they wrote it", as opposed to "using a clause to the letter of the law in an unambiguous way and any reasonable person would agree that that was the intent of the law to begin with" which is the case with ÓLG.

I think his detractors just don't like that he shit on their parade, so instead of addressing that issue they're making this absurd argument that he used a clause of law that had never been used before and ubsetting that status quo is somehow bad, while conveniently forgetting that that unprecedented clause was invoked in the midddle of an unprecedented financial crisis.

Activist: upsetting the established order.

This would be in my opinion the best description of ÓRG while president.

Really? The best description? By that definition pretty much anyone in politics is an activist.

I think it's much more accurate to describe ÓLG as a literal constitutionalist.

He read the letter of the law and followed its mandate.

He's undoubtedly upset the established older. I'm just objecting to how that gets framed, which you can just as easily frame his actions as "nobody serving as president before him had actually read the constitution" as "he's using unprecedented powers as president".

There are people who go into politics with the status quo in mind as a policy.

It's often the case in parliamentary systems that the Prime Minster / Premier's mandate is derived from the support of the parliament. In this case, that could justify the President not acting on the Prime Minister's advice until it was clear that he did still have the support of the parliament.

I'm always curious who plays the role, or the messenger for that role, who tells someone in this kind of situation that "no, you actually will resign. Today."

Episode one of the BBC series "the thick of it" begins with exactly this situation. Perhaps the best comedy programme of the last ten years.

Best programme of the last ten years, I reckon. About the most honest, too.

I hope that it is not the most honest, but I do agree that it is the best.

If you like The Thick Of It, you may also like the film 'In The Loop' and 'Veep' (both also 'created' by Armando Iannucci) as well as the Australian 'The Hollowmen'. 'Utopia', the sort-of follow on to The Hollowmen (which is excellent), is quite good too. There is also the 'Armando Iannucci show', which is very good, but also very different.

There is also supposed to be the Afghan version of the 'Thick Of It' too, although I have not found a source for that with translation.

"Afghan version of the 'Thick Of It'"

It is mentioned in the excellent "Bitter Lake" by Adam Curtis.

Indeed it is! An exceptional film maker.

In The Loop is a fantastic movie. Really funny. Highly recommended.

After watching House Of Cards, I always imagine the Frank Underwood character coming in to deliver the bad news.

For me, I hope the someone who is supposed to resign is smart enough to already see the writing on the wall and one of the closer advisors or aides quietly says "it is time".

From experience, I find this to never be the case, whether in government or the private sector.

For these kind of executive positions, I don't see how it could not be the case. For example, Nixon. There is no one who could have told Nixon "You will resign today". On the other hand, I imagine he did have advisers telling him, "It's time." I figure it's the same for the Icelandic Prime Minister.

I've always thought that Nixon was old fashioned enough to believe, despite his flaws, that it was the proprietary thing to do, and that it would have been shameful to have to go through a certain trial in the Senate.

Somewhat agreed - but I also think a lot of it was Nixon knew he was checkmated, and it was less propriety, and more just plain ol' shame and knowing he had no recourse. I imagine he was not alone in his deliberations, though, and that his advisers - particularly his legal advisers - agreed.

I recently read "The Brethren" by Bob Woodward and and Scott Armstrong (http://www.amazon.com/The-Brethren-Inside-Supreme-Court/dp/0...), about the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1975. Watergate is a major episode, and it shows that Nixon knew that if they lost their Supreme Court appeal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Nixon), there was little recourse left.

I don't think proprietary is the word I was looking for. Maybe proper or decent.

You were most likely looking for the word propriety, which is also the word I was looking for. I noticed you made a typo, thought about it, then made the same typo! But there is a difference, I think, between propriety and shame. One does something "for propriety" because they value their actions' impact on others. Rather, I think he was more embarrassed and ashamed, and he left office because it was best for himself. It's a subtle distinction, one which we can never know who is right because we're trying to infer the motivations of another person.

According to his son's biography of him, George H W Bush played a pivotal role in the Nixon resignation, in that Nixon resigned the day after receiving a letter from Bush, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, urging him to do so. See: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1...

This is never the case. I was working in congress when the Anthony Weiner scandal hit. Behind the scenes it was absolute chaos and he almost had to be frog marched out of the capitol by the Democratic leadership. True, there was no legal requirement he resign. He could've easily said screw you, impeach me like Trafficant, but the pressure to go is immense. Mark Foley locked himself in his office sobbing, and was so inconsolable that his Chief of Staff had to hold his hand (literally) while he singed the resignation letter.

It would probably be a Malcolm Tucker-esque figure (from The Thick Of It, recommended if you enjoyed House of Cards).

For me, a character like Lord Vetinari springs to mind.

I would imagine, when it happens, it's usually either an attorney or the military.

It's in the averted eyes of trusted political advisors.

Usually it's the guys in the room smoking cigars, guys you've never seen before. Bill Hicks explains it perfectly:

http://billhicks.tumblr.com/post/24578142318/livinglikebill-...

Voldemort.

A primary qualification of being an 10x politician is to be able to look citizen voters in the eye and sincerely lie right to their faces without any compunction.

I don't think is like that at all. The primary qualification is to be able to look citizen voters in the eye and know exactly what they want to hear said, and then say it sincerely without ever pausing to consider "the truth" at all.

They don't "lie", that would entail thinking about the truth and then speaking differently. What might be true or false never crosses their minds.

You and parent poster are both wrong. A politician rarely ever lies. Incredibly, most career politicians sincerely believe what they say. They just change their beliefs more often than most people, even several times a day.

Whenever some specific belief is challenged by external conditions (poor polling, disagreement with wealthy donors, etc), they just go through long doublethink processes multiple times with their advisors, until they're persuaded that changing their position is the best thing to do. Once they believe what they say, they simply sell it like only Real Believers could.

Isn't it just a limit then? The best politician simply changes his beliefs for every person he talks to until "belief" is so fluid it becomes completely unmoored and meaningless. Hence no consideration of truth or falsehood and being able to sincerely tell everyone what they want to hear.

>You and parent poster are both wrong. A politician rarely ever lies. Incredibly, most career politicians sincerely believe what they say. They just change their beliefs more often than most people, even several times a day.

I'm sorry, but I truly believe that not only is this view utterly naive but apologist as well, and I simply think it tries to blot the sun with its thumb.

Seems like he didn't expect the extent of the protests at all. I think this is a case where we are aided by social networks. It is easier than ever to not only rally large groups, but also inspire others.

I have no idea what the details of the case are (it's all still coming out) but the timeframe was extremely short. I would challenge anyone to make such a momentous decision inside a day or so.

When close to 8% of the country is protesting outside your office door, there honestly isn't much choice in the matter.

Iceland has a population that is less than half - nearer a third - of the city I live in. On that smallish scale, direct action by a significant number of people carries a lot of weight I imagine!

It's a tiny country. I've been to rock concerts that had bigger crowds than that protest. (Estimates are 22,000 for the Iceland protests. Both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders have drawn bigger numbers just to their rallies.)

How is this any different than most people's defensive reaction to people asking them to do something they don't want?

Lots of people won't admit when they screwed up until days later (ask anyone in enough relationships :P), not sure why this is any different?

People often don't admit they screwed up until they have to. When someone like a prime minister does it, it's a nice example to show that even their power has limits.

I wish we saw this more often in the US, but these days it seems like between a giant government and giant corporations, the people at the heads of them answer to almost no one.

> I wish we saw this more often in the US, but these days it seems like between a giant government and giant corporations, the people at the heads of them answer to almost no one.

The biggest reason why I want privacy and security for all is I don't want my future heads of government and policy makers to be beholden to anyone who might have dirt on them. If someone was able to get to those documents and leak them, who's to say someone else was not able to get to them before the leak?

What if someone were to get a hold of all the private conversations between future POTUS X and their boyfriends/girlfriends? I am more concerned that my elected representatives might have to reply "how high" when some clandestine operator says "jump". Yes, I am aware about campaign financing as well (saw the John Oliver video) and there's something we need to do about that as well.

In the US you pretty much have to have an FBI investigation and pending or filed charges, and foil-wrapped bundles of hundred dollar bills in the freezer, before anyone has to resign. Brazen in politics is a feature.

that's just like acquired startup guys saying nothing will change.

Well, often they really think nothing will change because they were promised nothing will change.

Isn't that a clear indication for lack of experience? I've been through my fair share of acquisitions and I've never been told things won't change.

The declaration that they're NOT going to resign has become a reliable indicator for impending resignation. cf I have every confidence in my Minister for Thing. I have no plans to run for the Presidency/Leader of Party.

Every time you openly consider the political correctness of your statements, god kills a kitten.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schadenfreude

> Gunnlaugsson becomes the second Icelandic premier to resign amid street protests, after Geir Haarde was forced out during the 2009 financial collapse.

This is beautiful. THIS is how you do a protest.

What were the protesting about though? Did he do something wrong?

He was found guilty of only the least charge:

“But he was found guilty of not holding cabinet meetings when things turned critical. The lesser charge carried no prison sentence or fine. ”

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-17256626

My opinion: He was complicit in his government’s regulatory capture.

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