So Palin steps down as Alaska Governor and...

It's probably a masterstroke, but when you consider the amount of heat that will be expended by the navel gazing US media debating its cons, it will be better to keep out of it. I think it's the right move, in keeping with the anti-politics theme of the age. I think that it suggests that Palin recognises that her enemies have created her brand, whereas she had chosen her job (Governor), and that the brand was overshadowing the job. Thus this was cheating the electors who put her in place.

Now she is setting herself free to match her actions to a brand largely created by her enemies. Her enemies seemed to want an anti-abortion, small government bogeymom. Now perhaps they will have what they asked for, but without the folksiness of a small (population) state governor. It is a classic tactic to allow the weight of your opponent to create the momentum of his own fall; didn't Palin do judo some time?

The jury's out on that one.

...and what you need to keep in mind through the poem below is... Obama's father left him when he was two! More Obamidian information here.

Why Barack Obama is not John Kerry.

Not my usual thing, I know, but I have to say that Barack Obama's poetic juvenillia is not at all bad, written while he was a student aged about 20 and published in a now-defunct journal. Since its now defunct I suppose it might be safe to post one example, which I can at least say I mostly understand even at first reading. This poetry takes a bit of talent to produce, and that's what makes Obama clearly different from Kerry and makes the significance of his liberal hauteur much harder to read. Maybe Obama's just got something. From the New York Times, which just got me on their member's list.

Here goes:

"POP

Sitting in his seat, a seat broad and broken
In, sprinkled with ashes
Pop switches channels, takes another
Shot of Seagrams, neat, and asks
What to do with me, a green young man
Who fails to consider the
Flim and flam of the world, since
Things have been easy for me;
I stare hard at his face, a stare
That deflects off his brow;
I’m sure he’s unaware of his
Dark, watery eyes, that
Glance in different directions,
And his slow, unwelcome twitches,
Fail to pass.
I listen, nod,
Listen, open, till I cling to his pale,
Beige T-shirt, yelling,
Yelling in his ears, that hang
With heavy lobes, but he’s still telling
His joke, so I ask why
He’s so unhappy, to which he replies...
But I don’t care anymore, cause
He took too damn long, and from
Under my seat, I pull out the
Mirror I’ve been saving; I’m laughing,
Laughing loud, the blood rushing from his face
To mine, as he grows small,
A spot in my brain, something
That may be squeezed out, like a
Watermelon seed between
Two fingers.
Pop takes another shot, neat,
Points out the same amber
Stain on his shorts that I’ve got on mine, and
Makes me smell his smell, coming
From me; he switches channels, recites an old poem
He wrote before his mother died,
Stands, shouts, and asks
For a hug, as I shrink, my
Arms barely reaching around
His thick, oily neck, and his broad back; ’cause
I see my face, framed within
Pop’s black-framed glasses
And know he’s laughing too.

A very short post


"Today I have withdrawn my candidacy for President of the United States. I hope that my country and my party have benefited from our having made this effort. Jeri and I will always be grateful for the encouragement and friendship of so many wonderful people."

Right, said Fred, I'm off. You have to love the simplicity of it.

Well, Fred came third in North Carolina, second among registered Republicans. A creditable performance but probably not enough. Still, if creditable is credit-worthy then I feel in credit, especially reading this.

Just as well, considering the parlous economic state out there.

I Hate Writing Things Like This But Anyway...

GO FRED!

I have been observing the US Republican Primary race with quite some attention for a while now. Recently Thompson has been awesomely good, in the sense of the best a person can be when they don't believe "awesome" belongs in politics. Slap downs and humour, serious debate and moments of humanity outstripping in all modesty the rest. Very good indeed. But most people think it won't be enough. Romney would do, I suppose.

Sample recent Fredism:

"I'm opposed to global warming... I was up in New Hampshire a little while back for a debate - that's the only reason we went, because the circus was in town... and while we're on our way, there was a snowdrift that must have been six feet high... on this snowbank, there were about 15 signs stuck in that said, "STOP GLOBAL WARMING." They don't see any irony in things like that in New Hampshire."

There's no question we're going through warming and we need to understand it more... But we don't have the answers to a lot of questions. We don't know if this is the end o the story, or something that will be followed by cooling... If we shut down our entire economy, it still wouldn't do anything about what's coming from India and China... We are a small part of the solution, and we don't even know the extent of the problem yet."

A video of Fred taking the media down another peg here

Not stellar, but brilliant. That is the point of Fred.

Or hows about this?

Still freely mocking politicians....


Mark Steyn's stocking filler is a corker.

Best read in accompaniment to this video 'enhancement' of Hillary's latest campaign video.



As the US election cycle begins to hot up, I was struck with the contrast between that and the incredibly depressing spectacle of another generation of Lib Dems girding their loins to rally behind the miserable, vapid and vacuous Nick Clegg, whose acceptance speech was empty as hell and inept even at that. The BBC tried to find an interesting angle on Clegg and as the Beeb were trying to be interesting in the written word, something they have limited understanding of, the result was typically grotesque:

"The male clegg drinks nectar, and sucks blood.

It's is an old word for a gadfly - an insect which hops from one thing to another, irritating livestock and rarely settling in one place.

Nick Clegg, its namesake, will hope there is more political sweetness than bleeding ahead."

I think I'd be a little irritated by that, were I a Lib-Dem, if I didn't know that it was probably just BBC "creativity" gone wrong- which is rather different from their groupthink leftism as that tends to follow predictable lines.

Amazing, isn't it, how much ground the solidly conservative Thompson can make up, just by ambling along?

Interesting article, with the opinions of ace pollster Frank Luntz, here.

Fred is the man as far as my thoughts go on the US Presidential trail. I still think he'll be the winner. It's funny that it's so much more encouraging (with caveats) to follow US politics than it is to follow the UK's.

More than irritating.

Awarding the Nobel peace prize to Al Gore was an act of political hostility, ironically. Personally I hate such backslapping affairs and would rather recognition were spontaneous- in which case the moronically inclined could whoop it up for Al all by their ownsome. It's the astonishing lack of attention given to their detractors which makes the Nobel committee's decisions so much like a kind of open suicide note to history. Recognise Carter, Annan, Gore, and you're pinning your colours to the mast and inviting a reprisal through public opinion. But so what?

Guess which British broadcaster was busy doing some loud whooping? Yup, that one. Another group whose demise would have me saying, "so what?".

Al Gore seems to think, by the way, that Hillary is unstoppable for 08.














It's true she's been a well-oiled machine of late. However, her almost preternaturally attractive image (seen above) is a bit of a Dorian Gray- someone's bound to find the real picture over time. She's clearly got image consultants that "silky" Edwards would die for- she's just not that attractive and powerful-looking, never has been, and truthfully the falseness there is indicative of her wider flaws: a skin-deep philosophy hiding a neurotic desperation for power.

People will prefer Fred, who is my tip for '08.

And that's the real danger for our Norwegian friends and the Rev. Al Gore as well- vanity will out in the end. Can't wait.

Enigma Bush

Well, it's good to see a good speech from Bush again. Many things closed in Prague today. Many people were ambivalent to say the least about his visit. Yet the speech he put forward managed to be eloquent, informed, flattering to his hosts, and honestly his own, as well as consistent with past messages.

On the other hand, what Bush doesn't seem to realise is that in the Czech Republic, even the dissidents were in some sense elite- educated, descendents of the affluent upper-middle class dispossessed by the Communists. Havel was a great example of that, if he could even be termed middle. His Grandfather built the Lantern theatre which Bush alludes to in his speech- a grand affair far from the ideals of the ordinary people. Havel was criticised too for having his head in the clouds, when president. People prefer the more bruising Klaus who isn't frightened to take on and slag off such luminaries as Al Gore. With Klaus there is content and courage, a recognition that flattery is no good and hard-headed decisions must prevail. With Bush there is courage, now and then, and content if you believe.

But believing oughtn't to be the condition for content where battling Islamofascism is concerned, and it's a problematic legacy if that becomes accepted wisdom.

"Everybody's watching, everybody's gloating..."

-Sandmonkey on the world reaction to the political retreat of the US Congress and Representives from Iraq. In a fascinating interview with the ubiquitous Atlas the Egyptian blogger talks of a political thaw in Egypt following Bush''s reelection in 04, and a crackdown following the election of the Democrats last year. Some things needed to be above politics- unfortunately the pols lack the imagination for things like that.

Then again, the US media could get worse (see below post).

The slowly slowly slowly approach to good US news.

Being captivated by a Las Vegas Porn show the BBC appears not to have noticed that the US Federal deficit has fallen to its lowest level in four years. No hurry Beeb, only a few hundred outlets scooped you.

The BBC is comfortable with the idea of hard spending porn-guzzling ham-burger consuming deficit running vehically challenged Bush Americans- a streamlined US economy boosted by tax cuts, not so much.