Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Friday

Alex Massie

Alan Keyes on Obama and McCain

Toby Harnden reminds us that the only man to have debated both Obama and McCain is Mr Loony Tunes himself, Alan Keyes. So what does he think? So what does he think of their debating skills? "Both of them, I confess, I found not very impressive as people in debates," he told me. "If by eloquence we mean the force of truth, then neither of these guys is good at debate. "Both of them represent and take stands both about themselves and about the country that have no truth in them. Obama rejects the fundamental truth the country was founded on that we are all created equal and endowed by our creator with our unalienable rights starting with the right to life. Though he pretends to be different, McCain also rejects that principle." Now it all makes sense...

Thursday

Alex Massie

“We just wanted to choose a really large number”

So, how's the financial rescue plan coming along? Are you inspired with confidence? Not so much... In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. “It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.” Meanwhile, and for once, good news for Detroit! With Congress preoccupied with the massive, $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have finally secured Part One of their own federal rescue plan.

Alex Massie

Palin on Afghanistan

So, yeah, keeping Sarah Palin away from the press isn't too stupid a strategy. The second half of her interview with Katie Couric airs tonight. Alas, it's on foreign policy and it's not, I think, likely to be pretty. Here, for instance, is Palin talking about Afghanistan: Katie Couric: Why is it much more challenging there? Can you explain that? Sarah Palin: The logistics that we are already suggesting here, not having enough troops in the area right now. The… things like the terrain even in Afghanistan and that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, where, you know, we believe that-- Bin Laden is-- is hiding out right now and… and is still such a leader of this terrorist movement. There… there are many more challenges there.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Caption Contest!

Whatever one might say about Sarah Palin, this photograph is disturbing on many, many levels... And, for the people who pay attention to these things, it's a blunder too. Because, you know, seeing Sarah Palin perched on a sofa chattering away with Henry Kissinger emphasises rather than reduces the validity of concerns about her experience and knowledge. Daft.

Alex Massie

Gordon’s Asset Management

Jackie Ashley argues that Gordon Brown deserves the extra time she thinks he bought with his speech yesterday, even though she concedes it won't be nearly enough to save him in the long run. But I was also struck by this: His wife Sarah's appearance was touching and starry: she is truly his greatest asset. Iron rule of politics: anytime hacks start referring to the leader's spouse as his/her "greatest asset" it's time for sentient folk to head for the lifeboats. cf,  Laura Bush. A good wife (or husband) is not enough. Sarah Brown's appearance introducing the Prime Minister was a) obviously borrowed from American politica and, more importantly, b) a sign of weakness not strength. She was there as a sort of human shield to protect Gordon from the nasties who want to do him in.

Alex Massie

Just Say No

There are very good reasons for wanting to be rid of this shower sooner rather than later: Identity cards could be handed out to children as young as 14, a home office minister has suggested. The first ID cards are due to be offered to 16 and 17-year-olds from 2010 as part of a plan to introduce the controversial scheme in stages. But Meg Hillier said the age range was still "up for grabs" and could be lowered "if they prove popular". She also said the scheme might be too far advanced for the Tories to "unpick" if they came to power in 2010. Lord knows, the Tories will find ways to disappoint us all too, but on ID cards they are at least fairly sound. At the moment. While they are in opposition. We wait to see if they change their mind once in office.

Alex Massie

David Cameron: Cad/Bounder/Rapist?

Classy stuff from Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the Labour Party, today. On David Cameron: There is something not quite right about him.He's the kind of man your mother used to warn you about.You know the kind of man I'm talking about.He'll promise you the world. Promise to make all your dreams come true. But if he got his wicked way with - you in the ballot box - you'd never hear from him again. Well, all's fair and it's a rough-and-tumble sport ain't it? Still, you can take this as another sign of Labour's desperation.

Alex Massie

The Fall of the Yankees

Ross Douthat has a fine post  - from a Red Sox perspective, no less - on the decline and fall of the New York Yankees. For the first time in what seems like a generation the Pinstripers won't be playing in the post-season. Buster Olney explains why in terms of trades and drafts here. Messrs Douthat and Olney make some very pertinent points. But, as I dare to suggest, in a piece I wrote for the New Republic last year, can it really be a coincidence that the age of Bush has coincided with eight years of Yankee failure (ie, no world Series triumphs)? I think not. The Bush administration's bad karma has leaked into the Bronx and somehow turned the Bombers into a baseball version of Bush's presidency...

Alex Massie

Political Advertising 8

This Michael Dukakis ad from 1988 isn't exactly subtle or elegant. But it has a certain resonance this week. Of course, that wasn't enough for Dukakis...

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Way Down in the Hole

The last ever episode of The Wire was (finally) broadcast in Britain last night. Not, to their shame, on the BBC or Channel 4 but on the obscure, little-watched (hell, little-known) FX channel. A quiet end then. Coincidentally, the end came as, for the fifth time, the clowns who divvy up the Emmys failed to recognise The Wire's genius. In five years the show secured a paltry two nominations and didn't win once.

Alex Massie

Caption Contest! | 23 September 2008

I remain perplexed. People are still talking about David Milliband as Gordon Brown's successor. I just don't see it. Miliband's the sort of kid who was always picked last in a game of playground football. Even if he's better than some of the other kids, you still wouldn't want him on your side. He's that irritating. Anyway, what's Gordon saying to him here?

Alex Massie

The Kenyan Connection

I guess this isn't too much of a surprise. But here's Rush Limbaugh talking about Barack Obama's ancestors, yesterday: LIMBAUGH: These polls on how one-third of blue-collar white Democrats won't vote for Obama because he's black, and -- but he's not black. Do you know he has not one shred of African-American blood? He doesn't have any African -- that's why when they asked whether he was authentic, whether he's down for the struggle. He's Arab. You know, he's from Africa. He's from Arab parts of Africa. He's not -- his father was -- he's not African-American. The last thing that he is is African-American. I guess that's splitting hairs, I don't -- it's just all these little things, everything seems upside-down today in this country.

Alex Massie

Dick Cheney’s Mission to Destroy Europe

I don't nornally write about Euroloonies, partly because I have trouble taking the European Parliament any more seriously than I do the Liberal Democrats. That is to say, it - and they - cross my mind no more than twice a year. But this, via the indomitable Trixy, is sufficiently priceless as to merit attention: Questions over the funding of the No campaign in Ireland on the Lisbon Treaty referendum Raising a point of order, Co-President Daniel Cohn Bendit (Greens/EFA , Germany) said: "Last weekend, the Irish press revealed that there possibly exists a link between the financers of the no-campaign in Ireland and the Pentagon as well as the CIA. This was a very interesting story and the explanation given was that Europe should not become too strong.

Alex Massie

Brown’s Salvage Operation

So, Gordon Brown's speech to the Labour party conferene wasn't terrible. By which I mean that it clearly pleased his audience. And his "This is no time for a novice" line was an entertaining slap aimed at both David Cameron and David Miliband. But that carries danger too: Brown is trying to make the case that only he can be trusted to implement necessary reforms. He is betting that, come the election, voters will choose "experience" over "change". Does that sound familiar? Well, it didn't work for Hillary Clinton did it? And I'm not sure it's going to work for John McCain either. Nor does Brown have the luxury of running against an ncumbent the way McCain can try to leverage his differences with George W Bush or Nicolas Sarkozy was able to run against Jacques Chirac.

Alex Massie

Hamlet: the Facebook Folio

Courtesy of Sarah Schmelling at McSweeney's: Horatio thinks he saw a ghost. Hamlet thinks it's annoying when your uncle marries your mother right after your dad dies. The king thinks Hamlet's annoying. Laertes thinks Ophelia can do better. Hamlet's father is now a zombie. - - - - The king poked the queen. The queen poked the king back. Hamlet and the queen are no longer friends. Marcellus is pretty sure something's rotten around here. Hamlet became a fan of daggers. V droll.

Alex Massie

Singapore Years

From the Telegraph's obituary of John Burrows, an intelligence officer who spent part of the war working at Bletchley Park: In August 1939 he married Enid Carter, an employee of the British Sugar Corporation, and a few weeks later, on the outbreak of war, he volunteered for the Intelligence Corps. "When I joined the Army, I was a teacher of modern languages," he said. "I admitted to a working knowledge of German and was immediately posted to Singapore." Relatedly, today's paper also carries an obituary for Phyllis Thom, who, like my grandfather, spent most of the war in a Japanese POW camp: By 1944 death had become an everyday occurrence, and entries from Phyllis Briggs's diaries of the time convey the mixture of tragedy and black comedy that were characteristic of camp life.

Monday

Alex Massie

Political Advertising 5

How much experience does a candidate need to have? What qualifies as experience anyway? According to this JFK ad, Nixon's years as Vice-President didn't count as qualifying experience...