Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Friday

Alex Massie

The Best Political Ad of the Year

From our UK edition

No doubting this. Apparently you need to win an election to become Coroner in New Orleans. This is good news since it has produced the strangest attack ad I've seen in ages: By way of background: The spot portraying [Dr Frank] Minyard as a Frankensteinian crazy was paid for by Dwight McKenna, MD, a convicted tax evader who's running against Minyard. It's airing on local TV in the area. The video highlights a mini-scandal from the 1990s, when Minyard was sued for allegedly removing bone pieces and corneas from the deceased and passing them onto transplant centers without permission. "It's contemptible," McKenna said in an interview. Of course, some people are going to find this ad is contemptible, but McKenna defends the spot. "The ad is, we believe, factual," he said.

Alex Massie

Who lost Mars? Obama, obviously!

From our UK edition

One of the charming things about National Review's blog The Corner, is that one never knows what will irritate someone next. Then again, almost anything and everything Obama does annoys some of the Corner kids. Today's example: not going to Mars! For real: Yesterday’s announcement that the Obama administration plans to scrap funding for voyages to the moon and to Mars, shows how low President Obama’s horizons truly are.  Oh noes! Jeffrey Anderson continues: You know those great pictures of Earth from outer space, showing our planet suspended against the blackness, a beautiful blue ball? No one has seen that view since the Apollo program ended 38 years ago. No astronaut has seen that view since then. We’ve all just seen the pictures.

Alex Massie

Tory Authoritarianism: The Nudgers Approach

From our UK edition

Oh dear. George Osborne and his guru, Richard Thaler, have been at Davos. This means, sure as eggs is eggs, that there's a piece celebrating behavioural economics on the way. And, yup, it duly arrives in the Guardian today. I've mentioned the Nudgers before and few people doubt that there are some useful ideas that it can bring to bear on policy. Then again Thaler and Cass Sunstein call their ideas "libertarian paternalism" which, while confusing is at least vastly less confused than Tory policy seems to be. Apart from anything else, David Cameron frequently rails against libertarianism (or, to be more precise, his idea of a libertarianism built of straw) which would seem to leave us with merely the paternalism part of the bargain. And, indeed, that does seem to be the case.

Thursday

Alex Massie

SOTU = Same Old Tired Utterances

From our UK edition

Barack Obama and George W Bush might not have much in common, but you can certainly argue that their speechwriters do. One of the limitations of set-piece events such as the State of the Union is that, in the end, many of them are pretty similar. Certainly, you can bet that the same ideas will be flagged and flogged every year. Perhaps that's inevitable in these laundry-list speeches but if so then that's another argument for a shorter, punchier, thematic address* that at least tries to do something different or be in some way memorable. So, many thanks to Cato's Tad DeHaven for compiling a list demonstrating how much of what we heard last night was much the same as much that we heard from George W Bush when he was in office.

Alex Massie

We’re All Doomed

From our UK edition

As President Obama might put it, let me be clear: the Daily Mail is a terrific newspaper and one may admire its professionalism and the talent of its journalists (some of whom are friends, of course) without necessarily agreeing or even sympathising with its worldview. But, if you were to only read the Mail you might be terrified of life given the long list of substances that, according to the paper, may increase your chances of dying a hideous, painful, cancer-riddled death. These include: Artificial Light, Beer, Candle-lit dinners, Deoderant, Electricity, Facebook, Grapefruit, Hair Dye, Left-handedness, Money, Oestregen, Oral Sex, Plastic Bags, American Rice, Shaving, Space Travel, Soy Sauce, Talcum Powder, Vitamins, Worcestershire Sauce, Working.

Alex Massie

President Obama Meets Candidate Obama

From our UK edition

Well that was long. 70 minutes in fact. And, as the genre demands, there was a considerable gap between Presidential rhetoric and anything that is actually likely to happen. Do you really believe, now that Obama has promised this, that American exports will double in five years? Of course not. Ezra Klein has a useful summary of the laundry list of promises here and the full text is here. Some of those pledges - the call for new nuclear power stations and for more off-shore oil exploration - were co-opted from the Republican playbook but that doesn't make them any more likely to happen. Nor, despite a reference to doing so, will this Congress really push for trade liberalisation.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

An Unexpectedly Important SOTU Address

From our UK edition

Of all the misunderstood phrases popular in Washington, one of the most frequently cited is Teddy Roosevelt's observation that the Presidency is a bully pulpit. This is often, perhaps even usually, understood as an expression of Presidential power. When the Commander-in-Chief speaks, the country listens and when he decrees that something must be done, Washington and the electorate can be intimidated into signing up for the President's agenda. But that's not how Roosevelt meant the term. Bully was one of T.R's favourite words and he used it simply to mean superb or excellent or grand. The difference matters because it reveals the limits of Presidential power. And as we have seen even when the President's party controls the House and Senate the President cannot dictate terms to Congress.

Alex Massie

Lawyers dancing on Pinheads: Iraq Edition

From our UK edition

I remain unpersuaded that there's much point to the Chilcot Inquiry and the stramash over Lord Goldsmith's interpretation of the legal case for toppling Saddam does little to change that. Paul Waugh has a nice, if somewhat scathing, summary here. But the case against the war's legality is a) pretty irrelevent now and b) rests upon the dubious proposition that the French, Russian and Chinese governments had what amounted to a veto over US and UK policy and that without their approval the invasion/liberation of Iraq was not merely unwise but illegal.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Sad Haggis Update

From our UK edition

I should have known that the news was too good to be, you know, true. Turns out that all the excitement about the Unted States dropping its disgraceful ban on the importation of proper haggis is somewhat premature. A spokeswoman from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service emails to "clarify" the matter: Recently, several news articles have incorrectly stated that the U.S. will be relaxing or lifting its ban on Scottish haggis  At this time, haggis is still banned in the U.S. The APHIS rule covers all ruminant imports, which includes haggis.  It is currently being reviewed to incorporate the current risk and latest science related to these regulations.  There is no specific time frame for the completion of this review.

Alex Massie

Royal Family Update

From our UK edition

I'm a monarchist- and much more keenly so than I was as a young chap - but the way this Daily Mail story is written is so ghastly and gawd-help-us that it almost makes one doubt the sense of having a non-elected head of state... Prince Philip has been spotted doing his bit for the environment - by clearing up litter at Sandringham. The Duke of Edinburgh prince surprised onlookers by bending down to pick up a discarded coffee cup and its plastic lid after church on the Royal estate in Norfolk. The 88-year-old prince did his good deed while walking back to Sandringham House after the traditional morning service at St Mary Magdalene Church on Sunday. Some spectators gasped when they saw him suddenly lurch forward and feared that he was about to take a fall.

Monday

Alex Massie

Hayek vs Keynes

From our UK edition

This is superb. Friedrich August vs John Maynard. Rapping. Needless to say, if we were to have a real discussion and a real debate between FAH and JMK this election season then we'd have an election to look forward to. As it is no-one of any sense can be anything but terrified by the nonsense that is about to be unleashed upon us all. Guilty confession, mind you: I tend to live as a Keynesian while believing or at least suspecting hoping that Hayek is right. If we each contain multitudes we're also made of weakness and contradiction. Right? And yes, too many videos on this blog lately. Been a busy couple of days. "Proper" blogging to return soon.

Alex Massie

Fair fa’ your honest, sonsie face & Welcome to America

From our UK edition

At last, real change we can believe in: the Obama administration is lifting the pernicious ban on haggis that for more than 20 years* has deprived Americans the chance to munch the great chieftain o' the pudden-race. True, during the long, dark years of prohibition some enterprising American butchers stepped into the breach and made versions of the noble creature that attempted to emulate the real thing. While fine as far as they go such enterprises can only go so far. Trying to make haggis without using sheeps' lungs is, in the end, an insuperable problem. All heart but not enough pluck, you might say. So here at least Obama has achieved something that neither his predecessor nor Bill Clinton had the courage to take on.

Sunday

Alex Massie

The World According to Gilbert & Sullivan

From our UK edition

Sunday evening: a roaring log fire, a calming glass of claret and listening to HMS Pinafore. For once, cruel world is vanquished. For a time anyway. And, of course, Pinafore helps illuminate our Britain too. Here, for instance, is how Bob Ainsworth became Secretary of State for Defence: And here is what the Barmy Army, if they had any wit about them at all, would sing* every time Kevin Pietersen** comes to the crease: *If sing they must. **Or Strauss, Trott and Prior too.

Saturday

Alex Massie

Panopticon Britain

From our UK edition

At the very least, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by this sort of caper anymore: Police in the UK are planning to use unmanned spy drones, controversially deployed in Afghanistan, for the ­"routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers, in a significant expansion of covert state surveillance. The arms manufacturer BAE Systems, which produces a range of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) for war zones, is adapting the military-style planes for a consortium of government agencies led by Kent police. Documents from the South Coast Partnership, a Home Office-backed project in which Kent police and others are developing a national drone plan with BAE, have been obtained by the Guardian under the Freedom of Information Act.

Friday

Alex Massie

The World’s First Suicide-Bomber Comedy

From our UK edition

I think Chris Morris's new film Four Lions is probably the (English-speaking) world's first suicide-bomber comedy. So it's all but guaranteed to offend just about everyone. Splendid. Doubtless it's a sign of terrible, even craven decadence to admit to looking forward to seeing it...

Alex Massie

Obama’s Culture War

From our UK edition

All American Presidents are elected on a platform of hope and change. Each arrives in Washington promising to be, in the words of George W Bush, "a uniter not a divider". But few took possession of the White House quite as heavily weighed down by the burden of expectation as Barack Hussein Obama. The hopes that accompanied Obama's election were so extravagant that it became all but inevitable that the 44th President would prove a disappointment once the campaign ended and the torturous business of government began. Even by that standard, however, Obama's first year in office could be considered under-whelming.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Massachusetts: The Aftermath

From our UK edition

Some observations on the Bay State Shocker: Candidates matter, don't they? Yes they surely do. Martha Coakley's campaign was so staggeringly inept, complacent, arrrogant and stupid that she threw away a Senate seat in a state Barack Obama won by 26 points a year ago. Yes, Republicans have won statewide before in MA but this was rather different, was't it? Have voters become disillusioned with the administration, even in Massachusetts? To some extent they have. But not by 26 points-worth of anger and frustration. A better candidate and a more rigorous campaign almost certainly holds this seat for the Democrats. By contrast, Scott Brown ran an almost perfectly-pitched campaign. So, er, this result doesn't really count? Oh yes it does.

Alex Massie

The Rules of Punditry

From our UK edition

More on Massachusetts later, but Conor Friedersdorf makes a necessary point that applies to pundits from all quarters most of the time and not just to this election in the Bay State: It is particularly amusing to see folks call the outcome stunning in one breath and aver in the next that they can explain why it happened mere hours after the fact, without any new data save the result. This is especially grating when it’s so obvious that the election turned on all the issues that were most important to me, that the outcome so clearly vindicates my world view, and that the wisest course in light of the results is for both parties to do exactly what I’ve been advocating for all along.