> The US White House press secretary issued a weak statement condemning Israel's action, but it was on April 1st and the costumed Easter Bunny overshadowed that statement.[7]
Wow you can't make this stuff up
Wow you can't make this stuff up
One of the reasons he says he stopped making his first series, The Thick of It, was that UK politicians became parodies of themselves. There was nothing left to make fun of. Then the same thing happened to his American incarnation, Veep.
I do like that Hunt for Red October has the Russians all speak Russian until one of them says a crucial word that's the same in English, and from there it's all English. "Armageddon". This submarine is capable of ICBM launch, starting World War III, and in the resulting ashes English or Russian would not matter.
Source: https://www.kentonline.co.uk/medway/news/amp/ann-force-one-v...
This generally ensures that they have absolutely no clue what they are doing, or qualifications for the job, and hence can be used as a scapegoat, while central government pretends it's not involved or to blame...
(And it also scuppered various plans to combine some police forces to improve efficiency, save costs etc)
A while ago I came to the conclusion this is true in general of almost all politicians. What triggered it was the conservative side of Australian politics have been fighting the good fight against climate change activism and renewables in particular for 15 years now. Currently they are pushing SMR's as the solution to climate change. As far any anyone can tell it's a delaying tactic because they know they won't work.
The conservatives have held the levers of power federally 8 of the last 24 years, so obviously Australia must be a basket case when it comes to shifting to renewables - right? As best they have slowed it down, slightly. Australia leads the world in roof top solar, and coal plants are being closed at record rates. Similar examples could be raised for the other side of politics, particularly in education.
Apparently leading the country isn't what politicians do if you look at outcomes, because evidently no one is actually doing what they command. Instead in Western Societies optimising our way around the laws they make. Which is probably just as well, because as far as I can tell the pollies don't anything notably well, and that includes playing politics. That's probably true for the very reason you give, they are elected in a way that doesn't select for qualifications, skill or competence.
That raises a question, as it appears countries who elect their politicians based on something other than competence nonetheless do well economically. Under the Westminster system decision making seems to be deferred to private enterprise and a government bureaucracy that overseas the rules private enterprise operates under. To me that says the politicians must doing something else that is useful. That would be to "take the blame", as you say. We elect them with high hopes, we blame and abuse them for everything that goes wrong for 10 years or so, then replace them with a new punching bag. Behind the scenes the people who actually capable of running the country get to keep their jobs for decades.
In the recent movie "Golda" (which I recommend), Golda Meir gives a piece of advice to an up and coming military commander Benjamin Netanyahu: "they will make you prime minister, but remember the career of every politician ends in failure".