Re: [OT]Heads of State

From: <Beth.Fulton@csiro.au>

> I think Derek was thinking back to the fact (or at least that is how
it
has
> been portrayed in a few docos down here) that no non-Greek (uni frat)
and
> fairly rich guy has been President since the earliest of days. Maybe
its
> media hype from outside the US (especially in Australia were "US
> bashing/stirring" is considered a national past time), but your
Presidents
> are painted as being larger than life and effectively royalty in all
but
> name. Our PMs and our governor generals certainly don't get the
treatment
> (on the way up or afterwards) that the Presidents SEEM to (at least in
what
> we get to see of them), but may be its all a cultural misunderstanding
(for
> one you probably respect your pollys, here the general opinion is
you'd
have
> to be desperate, demented, out of touch or crooked to want to be one).

I was at a church fete the other day ( got a copy of War at Sea for $5,
and
far better, a copy of "Atlantic Odyssey" signed by the author - the same
guy who wrote possibly the most famous nautical ballad of the 20th
century,
the ballad of the Jervis Bay, but I digress...)

The G-G (Governor General) was there. Seemed a nice enough bloke, fairly
harmless. Some of the people even left off rummaging through the books
on sale at the church hall to go outside and listen to his speech.