Imagine it. One day you are flying around, giving world leaders advice on how to save the planet. You pray with the President, pint it with the Prime Minister, tea with the Taoiseach and mingle with Mandela.
All of a sudden, there’s a new Messiah and you just can’t quite compete. Not only does he seem to know what he’s talking about, meaning that you can’t patronise him, but he’s also black. Worse still he’s African, or at least partly.
So he’s probably well informed when it comes to discussing his father’s homeland and their neighbours. Even if he isn’t, he has an advantage over you because he’s from there and is less likely to be dealt with with suspicion. He has an inherent understanding of the issues. These issues are in his blood.
So it wasn’t just John McCain who lost out the other night. But please spare a thought for Bono too who is now surely back in the world saviour dole queue and will probably have to go back to playing with that lil’ ol blues band he had before he went out preachin’ and savin’.
Probably just as well, the last few albums haven’t been the best.
I like it. Maybe CNN or someone could organize a globally-televised contest in which the two soi-disant saviours of humanity battled it out like gladiators in the Colosseum until only one of them was left standing. It would be like Spiderman v Batman. (Oh hang on – bats eat flies, don’t they?) Anyway, it’d be great craic. And we’d get rid of at least one of them.