All the king's men

There is a bit of an upset in Greek politics right now. It seems the opposition doesn’t think the ruling government is doing a good job. Now, they aren’t accusing anyone of any criminal wrongdoing, but in general they don’t think the government is serving in Greece’s best interests. So the leader of the main opposition party has called for a vote of confidence in Parliament and for early elections.*

I’m not sure whether I should be disgusted or surprised by such a blatant show of democracy in the modern world. I mean really, how can one be expected to govern if your opposition peers can call you out on all your bullshit and ::gasp:: call for early elections?

Can you imagine if such a thing happened in America? If instead of pissing around and hedging on backing more troops in Iraq, Congress would just censure Bush and his Cabinet for all the crap they’ve done wrong and call for new elections right now? But no, in America, to get Congress on your back you have to do something really wrong, like have sex with an intern and lie about it. Not something like spending billions of dollars on an ambiguous, never ending war. That isn’t wrong, it is American.

Still, I can’t help but watch what is going on in the Greek Parliament and dream of the same thing happening in Congress. Not that an early election would solve many problems, but it would sure get that monkey Dubya off our backs.

*I’m not taking sides here. Of course there are multiple sides to be taken when it comes to Greek government, since there are multiple parties in Parliament. But to me, both of the main parties in Greece are just different shades of socialism, and they both generally seem to be idiots disguised as politicians, just like in America. That is what politics is, after all, isn’t it?