Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Thursday

Alex Massie

Death of a Gadfly Playwright

Hugh Leonard has died. His Telegraph obituary reeks of boozy afternoons in Dublin's finest hostelries: Indeed, Leonard relished quarrels. "An Irish literary movement," he used to say, "is when two playwrights are on speaking terms"... Leonard resented what he saw as his exclusion from the Irish arts world, and poured vitriol on lesser performers. The trouble with Ireland, he said, was that it was "a country full of genius, but with absolutely no talent". His critics were equally forthright about the Leonard ego. He was, said one, not an original playwright, merely "an adapter always in search of a plug". Leonard retorted in kind. He eagerly debunked other famous names, including Brendan Behan, who, he said, owed all his success to Joan Littlewood's editing.

Alex Massie

The Limits of Presidential Power

Writing in the FT yesterday Martin Wolf observed: It is extraordinary that a popular new president, confronting a once-in-80-years’ economic crisis, has let Congress shape the outcome. Commenter IanC agrees with Wolf, as does Porkbelly who writes: Obama could easily have used his electoral mandate to impose his will upon the House Democrats when the bill was crafted; instead he let them cobble together a malodorous mess of every left-liberal pet project and constituency gimme. Now there's something to this. The bill is indeed larded with goodies the Democrats have long-desired. And it may well, as I say, have adverse long-term consequences while also failing to solve short-term problems.

Alex Massie

Turning Mexico into a narco-state proves we’re winning!

An update on this morning's post on the Drug War. From the Wall Street Journal's story on the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy's report calling for a fresh approach: The report comes as drug violence is engulfing Mexico, which has become the key transit point for cocaine traffic to the U.S. Decapitation of rival drug traffickers has become common as cartels try to intimidate one another... U.S. law-enforcement officials -- as well as some of their counterparts in Mexico -- say the explosion in violence indicates progress in the war on drugs as organizations under pressure are clashing. "If the drug effort were failing there would be no violence," a senior U.S. official said Wednesday. There is violence "because these guys are flailing. We're taking these guys out.

Alex Massie

Notes from a Parallel Universe

Courtesy of Joe Klein: Karl Rove: House Republicans had the wisdom to continue to talk to the Obama White House. This made them look gracious, even as the president edged toward a "my way or the highway" attitude. Pete Wehner: Right now President Obama and his team look at times amateurish and somewhat overmatched by events. But look! Obama just passed a gargantuan piece of legislation. It may be a bad bill and it may not achieve its stated aims but it's a "stiumulus package" of about the size Obama said was needed, passed about the time by which he said it needed to be passed. Whether one approves of the package is beside the point; the point is that the new President has cleared his first legislative hurdle.

Alex Massie

Solving the Ian Bell Question

Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only person who ever defends Ian Bell. Not that this will do him much good since it seems probable that he'll be dropped for the second test against the West Indies tomorrow. An odd consensus appears to have emerged that Bell is especially culpable for England's failures in the first test and that, accordingly, his is the head that must roll. Mike Selvey fires his Katyushas at Bell today: Last Saturday, before lunch on what was to prove the final day of the first Test at Sabina Park, Ian Bell played a stroke of such staggering ineptitude that it alone should be reason enough to ensure he does not bat again for England for a considerable while. Bell is a batsman of immense talent which he has failed consistently to covert that into ability by performance.

Alex Massie

Nicolas and Carla

This account of how Nicolas Sarkozy wooed Carla Bruni is both amusing and gruesome. For instance: “My reputation is no worse than yours,” he told her. “I know you well without ever meeting you. I understand everything about you ... You make love because no one makes love to you. I know everything about you because I am so much you.” With a hush around the table, Mr Sarkozy promised to be in the front row of a forthcoming Bruni concert. “We will announce our engagement. You will see, we will do better than Marilyn and Kennedy,” he told her. Given how matters ended for Kennedy and Monroe, you would have to hope Sarko and Bruni will indeed "do better". Anyway, who talks like this and who, even more improbably, could take it seriously?

Alex Massie

Drug War: Epic Fail

Lots happening on the Drug War front. First, the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, headed by former Presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, issues a report confirming that the tide of opinion in South America is turning against the Drug Warriors. In some respects the report simply states the obvious: It is imperative to rectify the ‘war on drugs’ strategy pursued in the region over the past 30 years… Prohibitionist policies based on the eradication of production and on the disruption of drug flows as well as on the criminalization of consumption have not yielded the expected results. We are further than ever from the announced goal of eradicating drugs. Who can doubt this?

Alex Massie

Government by the Phone Book

I confess I find this entertaining and reassuring in equal measure. A new Rasmussen Report in the United States finds that: Forty-four percent (44%) [of] voters also think a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation's problems than the current Congress, but 37% disagree. Twenty percent (20%) are undecided. The entertainment comes from the 20% who aren't sure and would like a little more time to think about it. But it's also reassuring. Politicians may dislike people "carping on the sidelines" but then they would, wouldn't they? Lowering our expectations of politicians and, for that matter, reducing the amount of politics its impact upon our lives would be a pretty good thing.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

GOP Deathwish

Arlen Specter, the senior Senator from Pennsylvania, is no-one's idea of a rock-ribbed Republican. But even though he voted for the recent stimulus package, he is a Republican. It's a measure of how the GOP currently cares more about ideological purity than actual victory that conservatives are, once again, very excited by the prospect that Specter could face a serious primary challenge in 2010. The fact that a conservative Republican seems pretty unikely to win in a state that is trending Democratic seems not to matter too much. The Keystone state hasn't voted Republican in a Presidential election since 1988, while the last GOP governor, Tom Ridge, was also, of course "squishy" and dangerously pro-choice. Sure, Rick Santorum won until he was trounced by Bob Casey.

Alex Massie

The PR Problem

Reacting to the Israeli election result, Patrick Hennessy plays out a scenario in which Britain adopted the Israeli electoral system. He suggests it would all end badly and that the Tories should remain resolutely opposed to modifying our election system. That's fine. But the Israeli situation no more demonstrates the failures of PR than our own lop-sided system demonstrates the inadequacies of a first-past-the-post system. That is to say, it both does and doesn't. There's no perfect*, universally fair and clear electoral system. If there were then someone might have found it by now. As Matt Yglesias says, different countries suit or require different systems. Hennessy claims that the PR system used in the Scottish parliament has not led to demonstrably better government.

Alex Massie

Yay Canada!

Poor Canada; forever ignored and when it's not ignored forever patronised. Except when the Quebeckers become fractious, Canadian politics and life barely merits a mention in either the British or American press. We even tend to overlook the Canucks when the stories of the Great Wars of the twentieth century are told. How soon Vimy Ridge slips from consciousness. But Canada has plenty going for it (even if most of the Canadians I know don't actually live in Canada). So, three cheers for Fareed Zakaria's latest Newsweek column: Guess which country, alone in the industrialized world, has not faced a single bank failure, calls for bailouts or government intervention in the financial or mortgage sectors. Yup, it's Canada.

Alex Massie

Gordon’s Apology?

Photo: Peter Nicholls/WPA Pool/Getty Images This item from Martin Bright (Welcome, Comrade!) risks leaving one speechless: Now word reaches The Bright Stuff that the man who has never knowingly apologised for anything is preparing his very own "mea culpa". I am told that Whitehall officials have been ordered to make a compilation DVD of Obama's various apologies to the American TV networks to be studied by the Prime Minister. The idea of Gordon Brown practising a humble self-deprecating manner in front of the mirror based on what he has seen on his training DVD doesn't bear thinking about. But then again... maybe it does. So...

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Hope We Better Believe In?

Traders work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during afternoon trading February 10, 2009 in New York City. MarkMarkets were down nearly 400 points after Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner detailed the administrations plans to battle the financial crisis. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Last year you couldn't open a newspaper without seeing photographs of Distressed Traders wondering what to do now that their world was collapsing. But times change and the media craves novelty. So now we get Confused Traders instead. This seems reasonable. After all, here's Paul Krugman: An old joke from my younger days: What do you get when you cross a Godfather with a deconstructionist? Someone who makes you an offer you can’t understand.

Alex Massie

The Libertarian Tail

This is the funniest line I've read today: Fifty per cent of the libertarians would agree to surgery giving them a prosthetic tail if they were paid enough to do so. Come on, you know you'd say yes too if the price were right...

Alex Massie

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: Take Two

Did you know that Tony Scott is filming a remake of Pelham One Two Three? If you think that sounds as though it must be a bad idea wait until you learn that the Robert Shaw part will be played by, yes, John Travolta. Seriously. Obviously. As Ross Douthat says, this is an entirely pointless exercise doomed to failure. You might as well remake Get Carter or The Wicker Man... Ross agrees with Peter Suderman who fears that matters Hollywood are likely to get worse, not better. But I am worried, to an extent, about the way Hollywood is trending towards recycling its properties. Yes, Tinseltown has been peddling recycled goods for a while now, but increasingly, it seems as if most major projects are sequels, adaptations, or reboots.

Alex Massie

Iraqi Reality Check

Right now, Afghanistan has become, if you will, the trendy war again. So much so, in fact, that it's now Iraq that threatens to be the "forgotten war". Some of this is obviously due to Barack Obama's promise to bring American troops home within 16 months and some of it because, frankly, Iraq has left everyone exhausted and keen to talk about, well, just about anything else. Here's a reality check from Thomas Ricks, however. His new book The Gamble looks like being a must-read: The other thing that people don’t understand is that this war is far from over. It has changed several times, and it is changing again now, but it hasn’t ended.

Alex Massie

The Perils of Weighing In

Newsweek, facing declining sales and losing money and advertisers, has decided to move away from it's wrestling match with TIME and try and be a gutsier, more opinionated, less-soporific enterprise. This is pretty daring stuff, really. This is part of it: “There’s a phrase in the culture, ‘we need to take note of,’ ‘we need to weigh in on,’ ” said Newsweek’s editor, Jon Meacham. “That’s going away. If we don’t have something original to say, we won’t. The drill of chasing the week’s news to add a couple of hard-fought new details is not sustainable.” This is sensible: one of the problems the news weeklies face is that they're terribly predictable.

Alex Massie

Obama’s Idea of Bipartisanship

Noam Scheiber addresses complaints that Obama is too conciliatory, too keen on the idea of bipartisanhip for bipartisanship's sake: But complaints like this miss what’s been accomplished these last few weeks: Obama has completely defined the stimulus narrative on his own terms. To the average voter, Obama has been earnest and conciliatory while the Republicans have been cynical, self-serving, and puerile. Which, if the past is any guide, is precisely the moment he’ll start playing hardball. I think this is true. Political junkies enjoy partisanship, not least because it permits one to divide the world neatly into Good Guys and Rotten Eggs, but much of the public, especially in times of strife, sees squabbling as selfishness and a continuation of politics as usual.

Alex Massie

David Cameron’s Peculiar Unionism

David Cameron's op-ed in Scotland on Sunday this week was interesting. Not because of anything that Cameron said but because it appeared at all. It's another small indication that the country is preparing itself for a new Conservative government. To put it another way, I don't think SoS would have been very interested in an op-ed from Iain Duncan-Smith or Mixhael Howard. What would have been the point? What could they have said to the country that anyone wanted to hear? Not much. So Cameron's proposals for how he would work with Holyrood are, while scarcely earth-shattering, useful to have put on the public record. Nonetheless, they are sensible, modest and designed to reassure.