HS: “The documents also paint a stark picture of the perceptions held in Washington of senior Finnish politicians: the former Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja (SDP) was, for instance, a red rag to the Americans,“
Great wording, “a red rag”. Erkki Tuomioja is a 60’s style radical socialist, scruffy beard and all, and most likely a closet Marxist, he would never say it out loud but he’s got to have a picture of Marx hanging on a wall he owns somewhere in Finland. The rumpled clothes he wears and his scruffy beard are his signature trade marks, he’s “one of the people”, but he’s also an elitist, a socialist intellectual who’s there to rule the masses, who by the way, keep rejecting his rule time and again.
He’s such a political hack that his own party of determined socialists (SDP) would never hand him the reigns to the party, the only way he’s a repeatedly elected to parliament, is due to European party politics and name recognition. This is a guy that US democrats are trying to emulate, like Howard Dean and Bernie Sanders and Barack Obama.
Red Rag, yep, that’s right, Ol’Scruffy is a red rag alright. KGS
