Icing the Cake

Normally I am quite prepared to hear what Justin Webb has to say for the BBC. He's not, I would say, at all right of centre on politics (meaning he's mostly left), but he has a little no-nonsense something about him which separates him from the other leftist fudgemakers at the BBC, such a Matt Frei, Tom Carver and Paul Reynolds. He has some writing ability.

However, it would seem that at the Beeb's Democratic fudge-cake festival Webb was singled out to ice the cake by analysing the senator's big speech, so he's produced an analysis whose message is unequivocal for a Kerry-backer, yet a measured if positive thumbs up for Kerry to a sceptic.

Webb has been one of the few BBC'ers to admit that Kerry's lack of appeal may be due to defects in him and not the defect of middle America, yet in this article Webb shrewdly sidesteps his analysis. Intending to be supportive of the hoped-for Kerry bounce, he says:

'I have seen that people hope that he wins. I have seen people applaud him, and I have seen people listen carefully to his speeches.

But I have never seen a surge of heartfelt adoration. I did see that in the convention hall on Thursday night.'

The effect is to imply some kind of seminal moment in Sen. Kerry's campaign, yet if you look closely Webb has really only said that the Convention's fevered partisanship would magick a silk purse from a sow's ear.

Here's where we need a little Steynian antidote:

'All the star speakers through the week were the equivalents of those bits of the rocket that boost you up into space and then fall away, leaving just the little capsule up there. And, who knows, if they boosted him up high enough, maybe nobody would notice just how little there is to John Kerry's little capsule.'

It's an analysis Webb can't quite escape himself, with statements like

'It was a very successful night for John Kerry.'

raising the obvious question, would a 'very successful night for John Kerry' be a very successful night for a decent candidate?

I think Webb is angling to say that John Kerry is a decent candidate, though, which is something that the left-leaners are extremely keen to have.

Where he gets really dodgy is in his comparison of John Kerry's campaign with that of John Kennedy in 1960. This is something that would really rally the wilting Democrats, but it's so false that it cannot bear the weight of Webb's assertion that

'The Democrats are reliving the year 1960. The similarities are incredible.'

Just of the top off my head, Kennedy was young whereas Kerry is old; Kennedy is fresh whereas Kerry is jaded; Kennedy charismatic while Kerry is, er, not. Meanwhile, the most sleazy politician in US politics of this generation is the Democrat who made the best speech and the biggest splash of anyone at the conventon: William Jefferson Clinton.

Some comparison, Justin. So thin, in fact, that Webb has to go back to covering the Kerry posterior for the rest of the article:

'One of the problems that he has had - partly because he is obviously a thoughtful man - is that he often seems to be taking two sides on a lot of issues...

Mr Kerry is a classic politician who chooses his words carefully to suit the audience. That is not always a good thing.'

So, one may ask, what was Clinton if not a 'classic politician who chooses his words carefully'? Yet Clinton has never been spreadeagled in the public consciousness as a flip-flopper, even after two terms. A two-timer yes, a flip-flopper, no.

The thinness of Webb's conviction about Kerry recurs throughout, such as when he says of Kerry,

'He said he knew what to do in Iraq. I wonder how many people's eyebrows will have been raised by that assertion.'

In the flow of the article this is intended to be positive, yet taken in isolation it is, er, questionable, even nuanced.

Finally, Webb urges himself, like the Democrat convention, to a positive conclusion, but even after busting a gut for senator nuance,
his conclusion has a sub-Brandoesque irony:

'Mr Kerry is a contender. I do not think he is any more than that...

Mr Kerry will make a fight of it, and he will take the fight to President Bush.'

Take the fight for the Presidency to President Bush and drop it at his feet, methinks.