Friday, March 28, 2014

To Lead Or Not To Lead


"You might be interested in this, Simone."

I put down my book, Jo Nesbo's Police, and turned my mind from the adventures of Harry Hole to the concerns of Rachel Levi. Rachel is my I.T. specialist, and she is very, very good. So good, in fact, that she found booking in at the Manor not only pleasant, but also life-saving, given that she was on at least three hit lists from certain intelligence agencies. Her act of interruption was so unusual that I was immediately intrigued.

"Well?"

Rachel plumped herself down, all six feet of her, and said "There's some very interesting chatter coming out of the National Security Agency that you might be interested in. Concerns your Prime Minister, in fact."

I snorted. "Stephen Harper? Interesting stuff? Hard to believe. He tends in terms of action to resemble a Galapagos turtle, making slow and almost imperceptible movements when he thinks no one is looking."

"Not this time. According to a number of people in the N.S.A. he is attracting all kinds of attention, most of it favourable. He's met with the Ukraine leadership, offering aid and support, as well as bucking up the European Union. At present, he is getting along famously with Angela Merkel, not the easiest thing to do. All this has led Putin to lose his temper, and a note was intercepted  where he savaged Harper, stating that Canada was a frozen wasteland that had accomplished nothing in 300 years of history."

"He has yet to get over a certain hockey game," I put in.
 
"Be that as it may, the NSA analysts were quick to summarize the various leaders in terms of historical or literary figures. They see Harper as a kind of Coriolanus, acting with will and dispatch. Obama they blame as having a "to be or not to be" approach to almost everything. They bemoan as well that their President cannot even make up his mind on a pipeline, let alone what to do with Ukraine and Crimea. As one of the more perceptive analysts put it, they thought they had elected Marcus Aurelius. Instead, they got Hamlet."

And just how did they portray Putin?" I asked.

Rachel smiled. "Oh, that was a a toss-up between Caligula and Nero."

Couldn't argue with her on that.

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