Alex Massie

Ach, David, methinks you protest too much. Is Obama's problem with BP really "rooted in prejudice"? Or might it be based on the fact that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is doing him considerable political damage? The latter, surely. I don't think the President comes out of this affair especially brilliantly but he's responding, as any politician would, to pressing political concerns that only the very bravest breed of politician would ignore. It's unfortunate that the Cult of the Presidency grows ever-stronger (and unfortunate too that Obama is no Canute) but there you have it. We are where we are. The notion that Obama is somehow motivated by anti-British prejudice is not one backed up by any great measure of substance.

Paging John Rentoul and Oliver Kamm for this exception to the general rule that most questions asked in the press are best answered in the negative. Here's Eliot Spitzer  - or, as Radley Balko puts it, "disgraced former tyrannical prosecutor Eliot Spitzer" - flying this beauty: After reading the Gettysburg Address, does the idea of a carbon tax to finally move us away from an oil and old-energy dependence that is fouling not only the Gulf of Mexico but our entire climate, foreign policy, and economy seem so outrageous? Why, yes it does! If, that is, it's the Gettysburg Address that acts as the clincher, whatever the other merits of a carbon tax.

As a coda to this post on immigration, it's worth noting that despite the impression given by politicians (especially during an election campaign) and by some of the newspapers this remains a pretty good country in which to live and most people, despite the national appetite for grumbling, are quite content with the places they live: Now it would be mischievous to note that the Netherlands, a country with high population density, and Canada, Australia and the United States, all countries with high percentages of foreign-born inhabitants, score very highly on this contentment index and it would be silly to suppose that there's a causal relationship here. So I won't suggest that.

What a disaster. For Israel that is. One may appreciate two things simultaneously: that the "peace" activists en route to Gaza were not necessarily as innocent as that appellation might suggest and that the Israeli commandos were, as matters developed, compelled to use more force than perhaps they anticipated. Few sensible folk dispute Israel's right to defend itself. But how that right is exercised matters enormously, not least because Israel's predicament is doubly-asymmetrical. Each side considers itself under siege and, for once, each side is correct. Israel, surrounded by hostile or at best sceptical neighbours, is acutely aware of its regional isolation. But on the West Bank and in Gaza, Palestinians find or consider themselves besieged by Israel.

  As you know, it's Ivan Basso in the picture here and on Saturday, for the first time and on the penultimate stage, in this year's Giro d'Italia he will wear the race leader's Maglia Rosa. He deserves it too. On the Zoncolan and then yesterday on the Mortirolo pass Basso has been the pride of the field in this year's superb Giro. Increasingly I rather suspect that the Giro is a better and, in some ways, tougher race than the Tour de France. The frequently terrible weather conditions play a part in this but so too do the unforgiving Italian mountains. In any case this has been a Giro to cherish and one that reminds one that, no matter how chequered the stories of the protagonists, cyling is the sport of a certain kind of truth.