The News in Canada

Inauguration Day.

If only it were an apocalyptic action-adventure movie, which it almost sounds like it could be, instead of our lives.

I thought it might be appropriate for us Virtual Canadians to glance at the views of the lucky outsiders as they look in us on inauguration day in the US, 2005. I shiver a little as I write that. Notably, GW's inauguration is the leading news article on every website I checked. I'm going to look more widely later, but I thought I would post some of my initial findings, as it seems that somehow vigilance is particularly necessary today.

The Guardian reports, in a poll of 21 countries, that "a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years." In an article about GW's speech, it notes that he never once named Iraq in his inauguration address.

La Repubblica, a center-left newspaper from Rome, links from the main headline to an article on the Bush team, and calls "Donald" and "Condoleeza" the "fedelissimi del presidente," (the superlatively faithful of the president), key players in what it calls somewhat ominously a Post-Powell era (an era inaugurated today along with the prez).

I think Le Monde's main line suggests that his speech had "messianic overtones," mentions its many religious references, and I certainly understand its disparaging suggestion (and Proustian reference?) when they say that the Democrats are "a la recherche d'un projet."

How sad, and how humiliating.