Niamh Walsh’s Manifesto
CNN line-up of hotties is not news to this writer
WITH the eyes of the world fixated on America, the CNN news team have somehow made the ugliest presidential election in US history very attractive viewing.
I’m fully aware that saying those CNN men sure are a darn dapper team of newshounds could be considered a cancel culture offence. But if the president of the United States can stand in the White House and call the democratic process a fraud, then in the true American spirit of the land of the free and the home of the brave, I think I’ll take my chances.
Anchorman Jake Tapper tops my telly totty list. With his cheeky-chappy grin he charms and then disarms even the most seasoned opponents with his withering broadsides and pithy put-downs.
Chris Cuomo’s devilish good looks have won him a global army of nonpartisan admirers – I mean the man is a handsome newsflash in itself.
A scion of a New York political dynasty, you just know he is that guy who leaps out of bed at 5am and starts the day in some fancy New York health club working up a sweat as he shadow-boxes his opponents while mentally running through scenarios that will see him deliver that day’s knockout news-punch.
Then there’s Anderson Cooper, the silver fox with an almost impenetrable expression masking his every thought. He is Tom Fordsuited and booted and his presence, performance and skills on screen are as polished as his Gucci shoes.
Don Lemon adapts a more suave approach and as sidekick to Chris Cuomo their double act is entertaining, engaging and very easy on the eyes.
Trump’s nemesis, White House Correspondent Jim Acosta, is the bruiser of the brunch and his tackling of The Donald is the stuff of legend. His unbridled and barely concealed contempt for Trump is tempered only by respect for the office of the president.
Then, of course, there is CNN analyst John King. Sums and stats have never been so sexy.
The mind of a magician, the composure of a chess player, John i s a ki ng amongst the CNN newsmen.
His stealth of hand as he deftly moves from state to state, chart to chart, from Republican to Democratic, with such masterful magic one wonders what sorcery does this wonderful wizard possess.
The CNN newsroom should be renamed the CNN ‘swoonroom’ – now there’s an attention-grabbing headline.
Our politicians can learn a lot from US
FORMER Washington Post publisher Philip L. Graham once described journalism as ‘the first rough draft of history’, and if that adage is true, then our current crop of politicians won’t fare well in future tomes.
The Leo Varadkar leak controversy is a most undignified and self-serving saga at a time, now more than ever, when service should supersede self.
Sinn Féin’s no-confidence motion was a nonsense, a time-wasting smokescreen at a time when every minute matters and elected officials should be cutting through the coronavirus, not stabbing each other in the back.
That Leo leaked a document is not in question but, and I say this as someone who finds Leo barely tolerable, to cast stones at his integrity is beneath even Leinster House. I would hazard a very welleducated guess that a poll of every TD from every party would show there isn’t a one amongst them who hasn’t leaked for motives of personal or public interest.
The country is facing our biggest ever crisis and yet instead of uniting, the members of Dáil Éireann are bickering and backstabbing as the nation near breaks.
When Barack Obama took office the US was in the midst of a recession and the Iraq war and, like us, was on the brink. Dick Cheney, George Bush’s chief of staff, met with Rahm Emmanuel to pool their combined knowledge and wisdom for the country’s good. Cheney himself said Obama was a foe not a friend, but added: ‘At that moment in time the nation was facing its biggest crisis. Obama had spent the last few years thrashing us up and down the country. But partisanship was put aside and left at the door because what the country was faced with far outweighed politics or party.’
Pity our lot can’t put people before party.
Let me sing praises of real star Daniel
WHEN it comes to bona-fide stars I am always pleasantly surprised that, for most, the bigger the star the nicer they are. Last week I had a very funny, engaging chit-chat with Daniel O’Donnell and, as always, the country singer was a total gent. Daniel and other big stars have, for the main, a genuine sense of decorum and decency and plain niceness. The Z-listers, I find, can be very often the ones who are big on ego and low on manners.
Pandemic has taught us precisely nothing
DESPITE nearly a year of pain, death, destruction and pleas to ‘heal the world’ and make it a better place it is all too apparent that humanity has learned nothing from the global pandemic.
It emerged this week that Denmark, the US and four other countries reported new coronavirus strains linked to mink farms. And in an egregious response, Denmark ordered the slaughter of the estimated 17 million captive minks in the country.
Why Denmark had millions of these beautiful, harmless creatures caged on fur farms in the first place is the first question for which Copenhagen should be held to account.
That these minks are bred, caged and killed, for their fine hairs so some wealthy person can have mink lashes or a fur coat is downright disgusting. Until we stop killing harmless animals for the sake of beauty and fashion, the world is destined to be a far uglier and far deadlier place.
And if we don’t stand up to country’s like Denmark and China on animal welfare and say enough is enough then we have nobody to blame but ourselves. Silence is no longer an option because minks, just like bats and caged dogs, can’t speak for themselves – that job is ours.