I just read on the Huffington Post that Michelle Obama is getting bad press for wearing sleeveless dresses. So now I'm posting not about her clothes, the cool weather, or whatever exercise leads to such great arms, but on that fact that I read this.

 Like millions of people across the globe, I find American politics utterly compelling. And that was long before the mesmerising lead-up to electing a non-white, young, vibrant president. Obama's rise to office is fascinating, his team (whatever their fiscal misdemeanours, failures to immediately live up to promise, or criticisms of focusing on spin over substance) the face of the new, his wife smart and fresh, but long before they were known to us, we were watching America. We were watching West Wing. We were even watching Commander and Chief.

Yes, America is the most powerful economic power in the world, and that's still true even given the god-awful mismanagement of the place. Yes, it's a warmonger whose flat-footed stomping across the planet affects us all. Yes, there's a weird mix of free speech, Inquisition-style terrorism laws, liberalism, Hillbilly conservatism, the best and worse minds running the place - that's all quite enthralling. But lots of places are melting pots, lots have colourful figures in public office, lots have scandals. My own country has all of this, and it's not ever as interesting.

 Why is that? At the moment, Australia (my country) is on the verge of sinking into the same economic mire as the United States. We have a prime minister who is smart, competent, and articulate; we have a female deputy prime minister - a first in our country; a minister who used to be a major rock star; and a cabinet of young motivated ministers. And yet...we just don't seem to care. Even the major broadsheets seem to struggle to maintain interest. We make local copies of American satires like the Daily Show and they don't rate, but we watch Jon Stuart, Stephen Colbert, even Ann Coulter on youtube. We love Tina Fey as Sarah Palin. We loved watching the Clintons getting in and out of trouble.

My countryfolk aren't apathetic about politics - there wasn't a single office that didn't stop work to watch Obama's election results come in - but there is something wonderfully theatrical or cinematic about American politics. Large institutions fall into a heap and then (despite the song and dance about being a market economy) are bailed out by public money. It's a market socialist capitalist democracy? A president rises from the most oppressed group of people in the country. He appoints his chief rival for the job as his secretary of state. He replaces a man who rose from a rich and powerful white family, a dynasty populated with people who must need help figuring out how to use cutlery and shoelaces. Only in America, as the saying goes... 

Maybe it's that regardless of the dark and bad that is in America, the resolute spunk and peppy optimism is so endearing. Our very earnest, thoughtful and worthy commentators tell us what we need to know, our politicians do what needs to be done. Our country is well governed. But there's no energy or sparkle. At the risk of sounding incredibly superficial, I'm going back to HuffPost to read about Bobby Jindal's objections to volcano monitoring programs.