"Who Are You?"

I'm not a fan of all things British - not the modern things, anyway - but I do absolutely love the in-your-face rhetorical style of UK politicians. Not for them the dreary, can't-we-all-get-along, insincere collegiality usually displayed by U.S. Congressmen and Senators. If a UK political leader such as Nigel Farage has something to say to the President of the European Union, Mr. Herman van Rompuy, he will say it in a manner that would start a bar fight in certain other surroundings.

Mr. Farage begins the engagement by insulting Mr. Rompuy's appearance, then proceeds to ask a rhetorical question - who are you and who elected you? - followed by a backhanded compliment - "I sense, though, that you are competent and capable and dangerous" - before answering his own question by saying that Mr. Rompuy intends to be "the quiet assassin of European democracy and of the European nation states." Next, Mr. Farage delivers a follow-through punch by insulting Mr. Rompuy's home country of Belgium, and finally concludes by saying on behalf of the majority of the British people "we don't know you, we don't want you, and the sooner you are put out to grass, the better."

A verbal smack-down delivered British Bulldog style. Ah, this is bracing stuff.

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