Reinfeldt goes to Washington, where the GOP ends up as Godfather IV

As all Swedes know -- guess that no one else noticed -- Swedish Prime Minister Reinfeldt has visited his fellow IDU-party brother George W. Bush. Here is my take on it (editorial in Aktuellt i Politiken).

My basic argument in the editorial is that these guys are essentially brothers in arms; they belong to the same international of right-wing political parties. Therefore, it might not have been surprising that Reinfeldt did not comment on Iraq, Guantanámo, the Iraqi refugees coming to Sweden. However, that shows a basic shift in Swedish foreign policy, and if Reinfeldt tries to hide behind the environment when implementing this shift, he needs to do a lot better. Besides, Swedish media was in general awfully nice when reporting about this event (blinded by the light and power?). And I cannot help thinking that it could have been Al Gore and Mona Sahlin sitting there...

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And over in Washington DC, the GOP is in a lot of trouble on various fronts. You have hopefully heard of the “Gonzo hearings” (Post coverage here). When you know what it is about, watch this hilarious YouTube-video, have a great laugh, and then look forward to episode V of this Godfather saga (about Paul Wolfowitz).

[Thanks for the link Mike]

Wag the dog

According what I have heard, a lot of newspapers tried to get a comment from Fredrik Reinfeldt all Sunday. The reason is “Nannygate” and the new allegations suggesting that Reinfeldt’s nanny was not allowed to work in Sweden when she lived in his home and worked for the municipality of Täby (where Reinfeldt’s wife used to be in charge of things).

The day after (yesterday), we got another set of “news” about the so called ”tsunami tapes”. Wag the dog, anyone?

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Today on YouTube: What’s good (from ”Magic and loss” with Lou Reed). ”What’s good – life’s good – but not fair at all” (full lyrics here). For all of us who knew IB.

We cannot only be against a bunch of losers

Sweden’s new government has had a terrible start; indeed the worst in history (see the charts, the left block is well ahead in the polls). Maybe it is because they got a bad start in general and then lost the debate against the trade unions whether it is good to change a lot of important labor market policies. Maybe it is because the tax cuts has not kicked in yet. Maybe it is because the government has quite a few internal problems (Minister Leijonborg writes in DN that he wants to abolish the subsidies aiming at plurality in the media market, Minister Adelsohn Liljeroth writes in Journalisten that she wants to keep and develop the system. And two Conservative Ministers are fighting in public as well…).

Anyway, I just hope that we Social Democrats remember that the next election is more than three and a half years away, and in order to win we need renewal and a positive agenda. We cannot only be against the new disastrous government; we need new proposals of our own.

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Another loser, George W. Bush, will deliver another SOTU tonight. I was ”asked” to leave comments regarding the Democratic response, but I am sure Jim Webb will be fine without my help. American Progress and their bloggers are ready for tonight’s events.

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Went to the movies yesterday (again) and saw “Days of glory” (orginal title ”Indigènes”). One of the best and politically most important movies I have seen in a long while, review in Aktuellt i Politiken on Monday. See it, and then you realize why it has been nominated.

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A new book about Olof Palme was released today, I went to a “release seminar” where Widar Andersson and author Claes Arvidsson discussed the book. When Widar got the usual question/statement about Olof Palme being a psychopath he just leaned back and said that all people in such important/leading positions become a little psychic. If not, the person will resign pretty soon... Enjoyed talking to star-blogger Gudmondson as well. I got a copy of the book and will try to read it over the weekend; reviews are collected here.