Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Monday

Alex Massie

There’s No Stupidity Like Palin Stupidity

From our UK edition

You'd have to stupid to think an Ivy League* education must be a necessary qualification to be President of the United States but you have to be even dumber to consider it a disqualification. And, to be sure, there are many ways of answering the question Bill O'Reilly asked a prominent American politician the other day. O'Reilly's question was: Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world? And this was Sarah Palin's answer: I believe that I am because I have common sense and I have -- I believe the values that are reflective of so many other American values.

Alex Massie

People are Stupid, but the Electorate is Not

From our UK edition

Martin Bright argues that "the British people deserve a hung parliament". I'm not sure that's quite correct. It might be more accurate to say that David Cameron's Conservatives have not quite convinced the electorate that they merit a large majority. (Nor, for that matter, have Labour persuaded anyone other than true believers that they merit a fourth term.) Of course, this too is a little unfair since, given the current constituency boundaries, the Tories need an overwhelming victory to gain a comfortable majority. If all else were equal, a six point win would be comfortable enough. But all else is not equal and so the Tories could win convincingly in terms of the actual votes cast but still be denied a meaningful majority.

Sunday

Friday

Alex Massie

The XI of the Decade

From our UK edition

It's that time of year and that time of the decade. So, what's the best XI of the last ten years? In some ways it is a disappointingly easy selection. But here it is anyway: 1. G Smith 2. V Sehwag 3. R Ponting 4. S Tendulkar 5. B Lara 6. A Gilchrist* (Wkt) 7. S Pollock 8. S Warne (Capt) 9. J Gillespie 10. M Muralitharan 11. G McGrath Criteria: Anyone who retired before 2006 is ineligible. Lara, Tendulkar and Warne etc could also, of course, be in a team of the 1990s. As you can see - and as you know - there's been a severe shortage of top-class, truly-fast bowling in recent years. You could make a case for Shoaib Aktar or perhaps Dale Steyn to play instead of Gillespie. Choosing a third seamer is the only difficult selection.

Alex Massie

Petraeus 2012 Watch

From our UK edition

Previously, I've argued that even if General David Petraeus does have political ambitions there are any number of obstacles that might make it difficult for him to make a successful bid for the Presidency. All those points still stand. Nevertheless, it's worth noting that the CENTCOM commander is this year's recipient of the American Enterprise Institute's annual Irving Kristol Award and that he'll be AEI's guest of honour at its annual dinner next year. As I say, a 2012 run seems most improbable (at the moment!) but 2016? Well, that could, conceivably, be a different story. Consider this award a data point, however. The flip-side to the award, mind you, is that, notwithstanding Petraeus's merit and achievements there may not have been a deep field of potential honorees this year.

Alex Massie

Backroom Deals in Brussels Are No Big Deal

From our UK edition

It's always heads they win, tails you lose with the euro-sceptics isn't it? For instance, they were adamant that they didn't want a high-profile figure such as Tony Blair to become President of the EU Council. No Big Beasts please, we're British! Now it turns-out that they're equally disappointed that an unknown Belgian and a scarcely-known Briton have become President and EU High Representative respectively. There's no pleasing some people... All this reflects the euro-sceptics belief that nothing that happens in Brussels can't be spun to their advantage.

Alex Massie

Paul Clarke Update II

From our UK edition

The national newspapers may not be terribly interested in the Paul Clarke case but, happily, legal blogger Jack of Kent is. He's produced a detailed account of the case, and the law, that I highly recommend. Mr Clarke may not be the ideal poster boy for liberty but it's equally clear that this is of little to no import. What we have here, as Jack of Kent makes clear, is a case that makes a nonsense of a) strict liability offences, b) manadatory minimums, c) the police and d) the CPS. It's possible that e) the judiciary and f) the jury could also be added to this list. Mr Clarke has not been sentenced yet. He could be discharged.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Did Obama Steal the Election?

From our UK edition

Sure, plenty of Democrats thought George W Bush "stole" the 2000 election (and conservatives would have reacted similarly had Al Gore been pronounced the victor by the Supreme Court) but did Barack Obama steal the 2008 election? Apparently our nutty American cousins believe so: PPP's newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately. I'd like to say that this poll can't possibly be accurate. But PPP aren't a rogue outfit. And anyway, it's the sort of crazy finding that's entirely consistent with all manner of other crazy findings this year. This is, I assume, why Andrew Sullivan thinks Sarah Palin the most-likely GOP nominee in 2012.

Alex Massie

La Main du Match

From our UK edition

Photo: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP/Getty Images If there were a World Cup for Being Sanctimonious, Ireland would qualify every time. So, mind you, might Scotland. The aftermath of last night's match in Paris has been predictably entertaining. One refereeing blunder (though it's quite pssible the referee was unsighted and so did not, in fact, "bottle" the decision) has provided ample opportunity for cant and humbug. Thus, the Irish demand that the match be replayed. Good idea! Let's have another go at the 1966 World Cup Final while we're at it! FAI President John Delaney complains: "There's a team that should be in the World Cup today and that's us. We should be there but we are not there.

Alex Massie

Trying KSM in NYC

From our UK edition

On the whole I'm sympathetic to the Obama administration's desire to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in New York City. That is, dealing with this kind of terrorism is a matter of law-enforcement as well as, in other respects, a military matter. And yet, despite all the talk about how putting KSM on trial is an affirmation of superior, civilised values and all the rest of it, I'm not sure that the trial will be quite the propaganda victory some think it may be.  Ruth Marcus happily spares one the job of dealing with a typically atrocious Michael Gerson column which alleges, ludicrously, that the ACLU is now running the Justice Department and that the Attorney-General's interpretation of the Constitution is, amazingly, some kind of "suicide pact".

Alex Massie

Does Obama Need Britain in Afghanistan?

From our UK edition

Since I outlined a modest case for dithering on Afghanstan last month, it probably behoves me to admit that, politicaly though perhaps not militarily, the time for consequence-free dithering seems to be running-out. Con Coughlin's story in this week's magazine damns Obama's approach to the Afghan problem, not least because the President, according to Con, has little interest in consulting his allies: The astonishing disregard with which Mr Obama treats Britain has been made clear by his deliberations over the Afghan issue. As he decides how many more troops to send to Afghanistan — a decision which will fundamentally affect the scope of the mission — Britain is reduced to guesswork. The White House does not even pretend to portray this as a joint decision.

Alex Massie

David Cameron’s Immodest Belief in Government

From our UK edition

David Cameron's response to the Queen's Speech was, of course, dictated by both convention and political nit-picking. Nonetheless, I agree with Sunder Katwala that it's rum to see a Conservative leader complaining that the government isn't proposing enough legislation. A useful reminder that whatever else they may be, Dave's Conservatives do not take an especially modest or reatrained view of government. On the contrary: if there is a problem there must be a bill and damn the consequences. So Cameron, correctly, identified Labour's approach as believing that "The answer to every problem is more big government and spending" at the same time as he demanded that the government do more, not less on a range of issues.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Health Care Reform is a Zombie Policy

From our UK edition

Peter Suderman notes that the Democrats' health care plans have to play a finesse: on the one hand they promise that everything will get better; on the other they reassure you that most things will stay just the same. Tricky! Worse, much worse, for those of us who hope that Congress passes or kills health care reform - either, don't care which, just do it sharpish!

Alex Massie

Sarah Palin is Mitt Romney’s Useful Idiot

From our UK edition

The glib answer to this is to suggest that she'd do the party a great service by not running at all. Yesterday I wrote that she's a "wrecker not a uniter" and that she could hijack the primary season to disastrous effect. That's clearly one possibility. But there are others, including some which might actually help the GOP and not merely by demonstrating the limits of Palinism and, consequently, lancing that particular boil. Though I think he under-estimates Palin's fund-raising potential, Daniel Larison runs through some of the that make it most unlikely that Palin can actually win the GOP nomination. And as Daniel says, right now the most probable beneficiary of a Palin candidacy is our old friend Shameless Mitt Romney. Until now Romney has been tacking towards the nationalist base.

Alex Massie

Paul Clarke Update

From our UK edition

Remember the outcry after the discovery that Paul Clarke could face five years in prison for the "crime" of finding a sawn-off shotgun in his garden and handing it in to his local police station? No, me neither. Well, blog-land has not been happy about this but, as a reader points out, our friends at newspapers and the BBC have completely ignored it: This story is getting zero coverage. I've seen more coverage from American websites than I have from UK sources. I've done a search at the Times, the Guardian and the BBC News website and - unless I'm doing something very wrong - none of them seem to be touching it. It doesn't even feature on the BBC website's local coverage for Surrey. It seems to me that this is a story in and of itself, no?

Monday

Alex Massie

The Second Coming of Sarah Palin

From our UK edition

Well, kind of. America's most famous hockey mom is on Oprah this week, promoting her memoir. There's going to be an awful lot of Sarah Palin this week. In the Wall Street Journal, Weekly Standard and his own book, Matt Continetti tries to make the case that Palin is, or rather could be, a populist standard-bearer in the tradition of Andrew Jackson, William Jennings Bryan and Ronald Reagan. Some of Continetti's argument is easy to mock. When he points out that Palin's not as unpopular as some people think, the examples of less popular pols he finds are John Edwards (cheated on his cancer-stricken wife) and Nncy Pelosi (who is, well, Nancy Pelosi). These examples actually weaken Continetti's case.

Sunday

Alex Massie

20 Years of the Little Master

From our UK edition

The thing about cricket, or one of the things about it, is that the game makes few allowances for ability. The strong are persecuted just as surely as the weak are found out. There is, literally, no hiding place. Indeed, the strongest players may suffer more than the weakest. For with ability comes increased expectation and responsibility. The weak or average player can fail; the strong cannot if his team is to prosper. So not the least of the many wonders of Sachin Tendulkar is that he has withstood the all-but-intolerable burdens that come with being a hero to a billion people. Consider this: instead of the silence you might expect when India lose their second wicket there is cheering. Because that's the cue for the Little Master to stroll to the wicket.

Saturday

Alex Massie

Is This the Most Enraging Story of the Year? Perhaps!

From our UK edition

You might think that this story can't be true or that's been made-up to provoke everyone's inner Littlejohn. But no, not so. It is true and, alas, an enraging, dispiriting business. A former soldier who handed a discarded shotgun in to police faces at least five years imprisonment for "doing his duty". Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday – after finding the gun and handing it personally to police officers on March 20 this year. The jury took 20 minutes to make its conviction, and Mr Clarke now faces a minimum of five year's imprisonment for handing in the weapon. In a statement read out in court, Mr Clarke said: "I didn't think for one moment I would be arrested.