" I'm an American"**

I'm delighted that America has returned to its senses. Obama's insane idea to bulldoze health care ( that from all I have read most people it think won't work in its present form) has itself been derailed with the election of a Republican to Ted Kennedy's old Senate seat.
Mind you, I can't help but think that the voters there were glad to have a change after 40 odd years of the Kennedys.
The message it also sends is that there is a distinct limit to what people are prepared to allow its government to take from it to spend. In America, this is much lower than we are prepared to pay here. I note our present Government has simply ignored this and borrowed/created/finagled money without actually asking us for it, so that when the bill becomes due, we will get landed with it. Its a bit like a "Dutch treat" dinner party when you drink tap water and eat a salad, and the other person has the gourmet menu and three bottles of wine, and then says " We'll just split the bill 50/50".
The other thing of course is that America sees itself as the good cowboy in the white hat, who is tough but fair, and never backs down. Obama's Nobel peace prize effectively sent the voters a message that he was a surrender monkey. I always remember Maureen O'Hara, the great , great John Wayne's close friend, who initiated the petition for the Congressional medal of Honour for him,and requested the words that would be placed onto the medal: "It is my great honor to be here. I beg you to strike a medal for the Duke, to order the President to strike it. And I feel that the medal should say just one thing, 'John Wayne, American." The medal crafted by the United States Mint has on one side John Wayne riding on horseback, and the other side has a portrait of Wayne with the words, "John Wayne, American."
Obama will never get a medal like that.

**A reference to a CNN advert of the early 2000s which had pictures of many and diverse Americans all saying " I'm an American" Powerful , tear-to-eyestuff.