The Other Minister (was Re: Is Umbridge a commentary on British govt. ed

[Carol]

Tonks:
> > I still think that the reference is to Bush. Never Bill!!! I
didn't  know people in the UK had a bad impression of Clinton. He was
one of our best presidents. What's a little "massage" after all?
> > 
> > I agree that Rowling isn't paying that much attention to the time
line. The book came out when people the world over saw Bush as a war
monger and an idiot. I am SURE it is Bush. Now that is something I 
wish she would admit sometime. Maybe when he is out of office and 
Hillary is in!
>
Mercia: 
> Sorry Tonks, I do actually agree it was probably the Blair/Bush
relationship she was sending up. I was getting time line confused as
well, thinking 1996 had to be Clinton! But you (and Geoff) are right,
Clinton would command a lot more respect in Britain. And JKR was just
having fun with a reference that was topical at the time she was
writing. Wonder what they'll make of it in 20 years time!

Carol responds:

Didn't JKR say that she wrote that chapter for an earlier book and
kept trying to use it but it didn't fit until HBP? At any rate, I just
saw the PM as a generic politician worried about his public image, and
while I did take the "president of a distant country" to be the
president of the U.S. (probably because I'm American), I didn't have
any particular U.S. president in mind. (BTW, the chapter presented an
interesting contrast between Fudge and Scrimgeour as well as Fudge and
the unnamed PM. I found the depiction of Fudge surprisingly
sympathetic, considering how bad he looked in OoP. Free from the
influence of Umbridge now that he's out of office, I suppose.)

Carol, who suspects that readers twenty years from now will apply the
depiction of the PM and the president to whatever politicians they're
familiar with