THE RED CROSS KNOWS BEST ABOUT DISASTER RELIEF, BUT MITT KNOWS BEST ABOUT GETTING HIS PICTURE IN THE NEWS

So caught up in our own affairs with Alex and the European Union, and the visit of Pip Hammond and his Weapons of Mass Destruction, have I been that I've failed to say anything about either the horrific weather "event"  (didn't it used to be horrific weather) in the Northeastern United States, or indeed the Presidential election, with which my friend, and Munguin's Republic's 'Man In America', Danny, has been keeping me up to speed.

So now I will rectify both of these omissions by recounting the story sent by the aforementioned Danny, to whom I say "thanks", of Mitt and the Donations, which although it sounds like a 1970's soul group, is in fact, what has been going on over the last few days in the States.

When Hurricane Sandy was predicted and later when it hit landfall, it was only reasonable to expect that Barack Obama would give it his fullest attention. It's his job. Whether he wanted to or not, he was obliged to stop whatever else he was doing (in this case campaigning for next week's election), and work in concert with the national disaster team, and the governors of the affected states and their teams, to do everything they could to save lives, organise relief, comfort and reassure, and get teams working on normalising life as quickly as possible.

The President had to break into his campaign to do that, because he had a role, a job to do. Mr Romney had no such role and there nothing that said he had to do the same, except that generally speaking people would expect it.

So it seems he decided that doing a little "charity work" for the displaced, bereaved, miserable people would be the best use of his time, so he changed the name of his campaign events and carried on pretty much regardless.

This video clip, which I urge you to watch if you have any interest at all in what is going on in America, covers various aspects of what Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have been doing.

I was particularly interested in the ploy Romney used to get charitable donations to the cause to also mean first rate photo opportunities for himself.

For obvious logistical reasons the Red Cross want donations of money (and blood) rather than food. Food randomly purchased and donated on the scale that would be useful for the millions of homeless in the eastern seaboard states would require vast administration to get it to where it would be useful, and even at that tons of it would be useless because it would require cooking where there are no facilities to do this.

But a photo op with Mr Romney accepting cash and cheques wouldn't have made the same splash as pictures of Mitt up to his elbows in poor people's food would. So against the express wishes of the Red Cross, Mitt asked for food.

And worse still, in case people came with no food, he had his campaign purchase $5,000 worth of Walmart food, and as people arrived they were able to pick up something to "donate".  Something that had been purchased by the people to whom they were going to donate it.  It made fantastic photographic evidence of a candidate who cares and who can inspire others to care (even if he has to produce the goods).

Does that not make you sick?

As an afterthought of course, the Red Cross won't want, or be able to use, this stuff. What will become of it? Will the genuine donations from Americans horrified by the plight of their countrymen just go to waste having served their purpose of making Mitt look good? 

Danny has promised to keep his eyes and ears open.

I don't think Mr Romney would make a very good president.