The US dilemma - a choice between two little-liked candidates

ON Nov 8, the US presidential election will take place. The incumbent - Barack Obama - has been a low-key but amazingly influential leader. We forget that he was elected into the biggest financial crisis in history, directly caused by greed on the part of bankers, but aided and abetted by his Democrat forebears - Bill Clinton (someone's husband) in particular.

Two terms later, the US has weathered that crisis and there have been great strides in domestic social justice - healthcare and racial inequality in particular. The US has extricated itself from debilitating interventions in the Middle East and Africa, but at some cost to future foreign relations. Indeed, the major international criticism of his presidency will be the failure to intervene in Syria and the awful images of the result of their inactivity there and elsewhere.

Now he has to be followed by someone else. The US has a real dilemma - the choice between two people whom nobody really wants. The third candidate ruled himself out with one of the most embarrassing faux pas in US political history - "What's Aleppo?". I assume he is lying in a darkened room.