As for me, I’m hoping that strawberries will sprout through the snow on the pine tree out back. From The Australian, with thanks to JE:
US President George W. Bush suggested overnight that being in government might have “a moderating influence” on the radical group Hamas in the wake of its victory in Palestinian legislative elections.
“As democracy takes root, the responsibilities of governing will have a moderating influence on those who assume power in free elections. It’s easier to be a martyr than a mayor or a cabinet minister,” he said.
Since the President is so fond of postwar Germany as an historical model for present-day Iraq, perhaps he will pause to consider a point from German history of a few years earlier: the responsibilities of governing didn’t have the slightest moderating influence on the National Socialist German Workers Party.