Neither have aged particularly well, and both enjoy an overt degree of photoshop love in campaign photographs.

They both represent the dying throes of idea bereft governments due for pasture.

Both have counter intuitively pursued oppostional, negative campaigns.

They have both chosen to disqualify themselves for a responsible vote by aligning themselves with idiots.

They have both manage to be outclassed by much less politically experienced opponents, in campaigning, demean our, and debating.

They both enjoy hiking.

Both represent governments who have maintained power despite not receiving the popular vote.

Both deserve to lose their respective elections this week, although Helen moreso.

Have we suddenly forgotten the brave SAS she sent into Afghanistan or Iraq? If elected will she have no words of support for Obama’s policy of syphooning troops from Iraq back into Afghanistan and attacking terrorists inside Pakistani borders?

On the tape, Bill English says “…the US you can argue over do it - and Bush should have put a different window - a different window dressing - there still needs someone willing to pull the trigger..”

He is totally right. The US can over do it, the Shock and Awe tactics of the early onslaught. Homeland Security are overzealous in their war on liquids and fingernail clippers. The sidestepping of the geneva convention, allowing for water-boarding and other forms of torture. Helen could not possibly disagree. All these things overstep my own sense of a proportionate response, and I expect that it is in this spirit Bill English made his comment.

Bush should not have framed the war in Iraq with so much fearmongering, punchlines and populist drivel. Helen could not possibly argue against that either.

This leaves- “…there still needs someone to pull the trigger…”. Does Helen disagree? Does she think that the world should stand idle as Islamic dictatorships systemmatically oppress women, where homosexuality is punished with death, as is the culturally insensitive naming of a stuffed-bear? We are talking about countries where being raped can be punishible by death.

I like to think that given the power, even Helen would be prepared to use force to stop a genocidal dictator who legalised honor killings, and sanctioned countless executions, torture, and rape.

While Bill and Helen and I might not agree with the tautology or methodology of Bush, someone does need to be prepared to pull the trigger.

“Humans are lie detectors.

We hear stories. We enjoy them. We try them on for size. We’re looking for falsehoods and we sniff them out.

We value the truth and we enjoy it. And we’re always wary about the occasional lie.

That’s why political season is just so w e i r d.

The spinners lie constantly. They lie with a straight face. They lie sentence after sentence, relentlessly.

Like the uncanny valley, we don’t really know what to do in the face of non-stop lying. Is this person an alien? Do they think we’re stupid? How are we supposed to respond to the onslaught of disrespect?

Some people suspend disbelief and just believe all of it. In an internet era, I’m wondering if that’s going to continue to be true. Once we see video evidence of a few lies, it all starts to unravel (or ravel, depending on your use of English). A cynic would say that the ravelling is a pleasure to watch, and the media enjoys it too.

But the spinners continue to spin, as relentlessly as ever. I wonder if this election is going to mark the end of classic spin or the beginning of a whole new class of even slicker lying…”