Barack obama

Watch this one run and run. First up is Florida Democrat Alcee Hastings: "If we have transparency and accountability, than you can leave Gitmo just like it is," he said. "The physical plant of Guantanamo is built to hold people. And therefore I argue and will pursue the administration to give a look at legislation that I am developing that will give transparency and accountability and may satisfy our allies as well," Hastings said, noting that he would enable groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Red Cross to have better access to monitor the facility. Hastings has yet to seriously discuss the proposal with the White House but asserts that it could be a viable solution given that the new Gitmo comes with a guarantee of no torture. Hastings, a former U.S.

Time's Swampland blog pokes some fun at Britons getting "in a tizzy" over the apparent news that Obama is, like his predecessor, going to reward one of his fund-raisers by appointing Lou Susman to be the United States' Ambassador to the Court of St James. Apparently, Susman shouldn't worry. Once the Brits get over their disappointment, they'll stop seeing him as Not-Oprah and remember he's Close-to-Obama. Well, maybe. And it's true, of course, that much of the fretting and hand-wringing over the so-called "Special Relationship" is absurd. So much so that it's become one of the press's favourite pantomime acts.

The White House could easily have granted the press conference Gordon Brown so clearly craved. Though there was something a little craven, a touch humiliating about much of the build-up to this week's Prime Ministerial visit to Washington, it's reasonable to suppose that, in this instance at least, Brown may have been treated a little shabbily. The kindest way to view this is that the White House is so focused on economic fire-fighting that it has little time for diplomatic niceties; alternatively it sends a tough reminder as to who wears the trousers in this relationship partnership. There'll be none of this Athens to Rome nonsense, Mister Brown. (Was it just a coincidence that the BBC went big on Macmillan visiting JFK in their footage last night?

Melanie Phillips makes a pretty remarkable claim at the end of this post: The fact is that Israel faces the nightmare scenario that it now stands alone -- and against America. Whether through naivety, ideology or rank malice, there is now a fifth columnist in the White House, undermining the cause of the free world. The vast majority of Americans who staunchly support Israel's struggle to exist in the face of genocidal attack, and understand only too well its role as the front line of defence for the free world, need to become aware of what is being done in their name. As polemic, this is fine stuff. But as analysis I confess I find it somewhat exaggerated.