Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Krapp’s Last Sale

From our UK edition

From John Banville's TNR review of The Letters of Samuel Beckett, 1929-40: In London, Beckett considered a number of possible day jobs, toying with the notion of becoming an airline pilot or--wait for it--an advertising copy writer. (There is food for a dinner-party game, devising the jingles that Beckett might have thought up for washing powder or diapers.) Quite so! Readers are therefore invited to suggest advertising copy that could have been written by Mr Beckett...

Alex Massie

The Party of Trammeled Freedom

From our UK edition

Like James, I thought there's some interesting stuff in David Brooks' column today. On the other hand there's also a fair quantity of stuff with which one might take some issue. To wit: Today, if Republicans had learned the right lessons from the Westerns, or at least John Ford Westerns, they would not be the party of untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice. They would once again be the party of community and civic order. What? When did the GOP become the party of "untrammeled freedom and maximum individual choice"? Remind me please, because I seem to have missed it.

Monday

Alex Massie

Harriet Harman Disappoints Again

From our UK edition

Say it ain't so, Harriet! Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman has denied a report she would fight for the party leadership, as speculation grows over Gordon Brown's position. She insisted the story was "simply not true" and under "no circumstances" would she be a candidate. She told the BBC's Today programme: "I don't want to be prime minister and I don't want to be leader of the party." Can this be true? Surely not! Then again, Harriet seems determined to disappoint us. One does wonder, however, how many times Labour must talk about its leadership problem before anyone has the courage to actually do something about it...

Alex Massie

Holy Gordon’s Prayer

From our UK edition

There's a telling line in this story from the Mail which (if true!) gets to the heart of Gordon Brown's sense of himself. Apparently he was unhappy with the line of questioning being pursued by a recent TV interviewer, leading Brown to complain, off-camera, that "You are impugning my integrity." Now if ever a complaint reeked of the Manse, this is it. Not that the Prime Minister is alone in parading his own estimation of his integrity as though it deflected not only criticism but, more implausibly still, the very grounds upon which such criticism might be offered; the late John Smith could take such a view himself. Smith was fond of arguing that the Scots are "a more moral people" than the English and, deep down, I'd be (very) surprised if Gordon Brown didn't secretly agree.

Saturday

Alex Massie

Swine Flu Panic

From our UK edition

The latest news should obviously have you feeling Very, Very Afraid: Mexico has revised down the suspected death toll from swine flu from 176 to 101, indicating that the outbreak may not be as bad as was initially feared. Health Minister Jose Angel Cordova told the BBC that, based on samples tested, the mortality rate was comparable with that of seasonal flu. You don't say! Will this be reflected in the media coverage? Don't be silly. I mean, the hospitals are sending people home even though they don't have swine flu...

Alex Massie

Saturday Morning Country

From our UK edition

Last week it was Dolly Parton in this (newly created!) slot; this Saturday it's the turn of another great country diva, Emmylou Harris. I saw her at the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow last year and, truth to say, it was probably only a 6/10 gig. I think Norm's assessment of her performance in Manchester on that tour is pretty fair. I also think you should read his album-by-album review of her fabulous career and his ranking of her albums here. Anyway, after the jump, here's the great lady singing a great song by another great artist, Townes van Zandt. Yes, this is Emmylou Harris performing Pancho and Lefty on The Old Grey Whistle Test way back in 1977. Great stuff.

Friday

Alex Massie

Judging Dubya: A Litmus Test

From our UK edition

Generalisation of the Day comes from Jay Nordlinger at National Review: In my experience — and I’m just generalizing here — the better the person, the more positive he is about George W. Bush. Well! Look, I don't hate Dubya and I was glad he defeated Al Gore, but the notion that liking the 43rd President is some sort of character test is laughable. Sure, some of the tedious Bush Derangment Syndrome was gratingly witless, but, please spare us this twaddle in return. Then again, this is part of a weird conservative trope that elevates character above all other considerations. It's important, certainly, but not everything.

Alex Massie

Gordon Must Stay!

From our UK edition

Iain Martin - who's been blogging has been splendid lately - is right: the Tories should be worried that Labour might unseat Gordon Brown and fight the next election under new leadership. It's hard to see how even this could win the election for Labour, but at the very least it might limit the losses the party can otherwise expect next summer. In fact Labour would be well-advised to get rid of Brown after the European elections next month, replace him with someone such as Alan Johnson or even, god help us, Jack Straw and promise to hold an election in October this year. Since there's little advantage in carrying on with Broon to the Bitter End it would be better to lance the boil now and be done with it.

Alex Massie

Petain, de Gaulle and Patriotism

From our UK edition

As part of an excellent back-and-forth with Daniel Larison on the question of patritism, Noah Millman asks: Can one hold that both Marsall Petain and General de Gaulle were French patriots? I think the answer to this one has to be “yes.” You can’t hold that both were right, but you can believe that both were acting sincerely out of patriotic motives – that both were doing what they felt was best for France as France. I rather agree with this, but would go further and argue that you can hold that both Petain and de Gaulle were right.

Alex Massie

Peter Mandelson: A National Treasure?

From our UK edition

The other day, Danny Finkelstein asked if Peter Mandelson has "given up". He was reflecting upon Mandelson's wistful declaration that his career "has not been as successful as I wished. You have certain goals and I never acheived them. That's a disappointment for me." Danny professed himself astonished by this, arguing that by any measure Mandelson has enjoyed a "stellar" career: Not only has he held really dizzyingly high office, but he has been massively influential on two Prime Ministers. He changed the Labour Party profoundly. And in the great political dispute of his life, his antagonist was forced to surrender humiliatingly. How could he possibly be disappointed? Quite easily!

Thursday

Alex Massie

Faith and Begorrah…

From our UK edition

Good lord, it's like the last thirty years never happened: the Irish government wants a new law to prohibit blasphemy. If passed then, astonishingly, the courts will be asked to decide if the supposed victim has been sufficiently outraged for there to have been an offence. Remarkable. And expensive too since it could cost you up to €100,000 and a visit from the Gardai Siochana to confiscate the "offensive material". As Carol Coulter explains: For that to happen, a court will have to be satisfied the matter published is “grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters held sacred by any religion, thereby causing outrage among a substantial number of the adherents of that religion”, and that the outrage was intentional.

Alex Massie

Swine Flu Fever

From our UK edition

If they can panic in Washington DC, then, for heavens' sake, we can have some hysteria here too: The first Britons confirmed to have caught swine flu have been discharged from hospital after recovering. This will obviously disappoint the BBC, who've been hoping that Swine flu will make up for the great disappointment that was bird flu's failure to bump us all off. Still, this news, while obviously a setback, won't be enough to stop them from telling us that we're all going to die next week. UPDATE: Do you have Swine Flu? Find out here and here.

Alex Massie

Karl Rove and the Limits of the Presidency

From our UK edition

Karl Rove's latest column is quite something. He writes that: Another emphasis in the Obama 100 days talking points is that the president is a decisive leader. However, Mr. Obama is enormously deferential to Democrats in Congress and has outsourced formulation of key policies to them. He appears largely ambivalent about the contents of important legislation, satisfied to simply sign someone else's bill. On the $787 billion stimulus package, he specified less than a quarter of the bill's spending and let House Appropriations Chairman Dave Obey decide the rest. On cap and trade, Mr. Obama is comfortable to let Democratic Reps. Henry Waxman and Edward Markey write that legislation with virtually no White House guidance. On health care, the White House is providing very little detail. Mr.

Alex Massie

The Unbearable Deliciousness of Minaret-Shaped Candy

From our UK edition

Like Mr Larison I wish Mr Salam had not cut this paragraph from this (excellent) piece on the popularity of the paranoid style: So despite the fact that Obama has been a church-going Christian for most of his adult life, more than a tenth of the country believes that while roaming the streets of Jakarta as an elementary schooler, Obama met some wily bearded imam who lured him into his roving Muslim-mobile with delicious minaret-shaped candies and converted him to radical Islam. Dazzled by his obvious intelligence, and convinced long before David Axelrod that Americans were itching to elect a half-Kenyan youth as president, he also sold young Obama on the idea of keeping his Islamic zealotry under wraps.

Alex Massie

Obama and Cricket

From our UK edition

It's true you know, Barack Obama does want to un-make the United States of America. First he takes a quick cricket lesson from Brian Lara, now he's reading Joseph O'Neill's (splendid) Netherland - a novel that is, at least in part, about cricket in New York City. Could anything be more un-American? Of course not. Except, of course, cricket has a long and proud history in the United States and, for a while, it seemed as likely that cricket would become the national pastime as baseball. Indeed, the world's first international cricket match was contested by teams representing the United States and Canada. Personally, I blame the decision to move the capital from Philadelphia to Washington DC for cricket's eclipse.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Gurkhas: Parliament’s Shocking Display of Decency

From our UK edition

The shocking thing about the government's defeat this afternoon is that it can be described as a shock at all. And parliamentarians wonder why they are viewed with, to put it mildly, disdain? Anyone with an ounce of commonsense can see that it is grotesque to tell the Gurkhas that they may fight in the British army but they cannot live in Britain. And yet 246 MPs duly blundered through the government lobby solely so they could be good little soldiers themselves and try and spare their masters some much-deserved embarrassment. Then again, it's a testament to the reduced expectations people have of parliament that it actually is a surprise that enough Labour MPs found sufficient reserves of conscience to vote against the government to produce the right result.

Alex Massie

Barack Obama and King Canute

From our UK edition

No-one would argue that Barack Obama is without ego. Then again, that's also true of most politicians. Mark Steyn, however, objects that Obama "seems to see himself as Nelson Mandela and the previous regime as the old National Party". This seems a stretch given that the evidence proffered is Obama's quip that We cannot pretend somehow that because Barack Hussein Obama got elected as president, suddenly everything is going to be okay. Steyn suggests the offence - or the arrogance - of this was made worse by the fact that Obama was speaking in Strasbourg at the time. But itsn't it obvious that, on this occasion at least, Obama is being traduced in much the same manner as poor old King Canute has been done in by a wilfull misunderstanding of his actions.

Alex Massie

A Foreign Policy Film Festival

From our UK edition

Stephen Walt and Dan Drezner each list ten films they think merit inclusion in a Foreign Policy Film Festival since they shed some light, one way or another, upon international relations. Well, that's a parlour game everyone can play. No need to hold tenure! Professor Walt suggests that war movies, spy capers and propaganda films ought to be excluded so, playing only moderately fast and loose with his criteria, here's another list: The Man Who Would Be King (1975): You must have an Afghanistan movie these days and this is the best there is. Kipling's tale of imperial adventure, folly, ambition, lunacy and greed is also a great buddy movie and the only time Connery and Caine appeared on screen together.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Great GOP Victory! Arlen Specter Now Officially a Democrat!

From our UK edition

Well, you gotta hand it to them. The Republican party's base finally got rid of Republican-In-Name-Only Arlen Specter. The Pennsylvania Senator has had enough and isn't going to take it anymore. He's now a Democrat. And so, a heretic was cast into the wilderness and the conservative movement offered great hosannas of joy. Better to be small but pure than large and corrupted by moderation and squishy centrism. That this defection may ensure the Democrats have a filibuster-proof 60 votes in the Senate matters less than enforcing ideological conformity. That's how you win these days, right? Granted, Al Franken still has to be confirmed as the winner in Minnesota and granted too Specter insists that he will be no more doctrinaire a Democrat than he was a Republican. But still.

Alex Massie

The Great ID Card Con

From our UK edition

Identity Cards would be a Bad Idea even if there were any reason to suppose they would work. So I'm intrigued by the suggestion Pete mentions that this multi-billion pound absurdity might be cancelled. Because of the state of the public finances of course. I doubt it will be abandoned since a) government value control even more than money and b) if it were, the government would presumably have to agree that ID cards won't save lives. On the other hand - and from the Home Office's perspective, looking upon the bright side of matters -  they would then be able to blame ID card opponents for the next terrorist attack. They might enjoy doing that, too. Not that this ministry would "play politics" with terrorism would it?